BX 8345 
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T, THE ^ 

Eldership Structural 



IN THE 



ETHODisT Episcopal QiuRCH 




T.B.Ford 



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Class 3.X^-M: 
Book ^XlQ 



Copyright N° 



COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 

Presiding Eldership Structural 



IN THE 



Methodist Episcopal Church 



TrBTFORD 

Of the Oregon Conference 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND PYE 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



\Q D<V 



^/lt 



LIBRARY v>* CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

MAR 26 1904 

, ^ Copyright Ewtry 
CLASfc di^ XXc, No, 

^ 'coi-Y r 



Copyright, 1904, by 
Jennings and Pye 



SDeaication 

TO THE 

PRESIDING ELDERS 

OF THE 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 

WHOSE LABORS AND SACRIFICES 

HAVE ENTERED SO LARGELY INTO THE 

HISTORY AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF 

THE Church, 
THIS VOLUME 

IS RESPECTFULLY AND FRATERNALLY 
DEDICATED BY 

THE AUTHOR 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. The Historical Setting of the Presiding 

Eldership, --17 

II. The Nature op the Office of Presiding 

Elder, 34 

III. The Relations of the Presiding Eldership, 51 

lY. The Functions and Responsibilities of the 

Presiding Eldership, . - _ - 66 

Y. The Claims and Proper Recognition of the 

Presiding Eldership, - - - - 86 

YI. Present-day Needs of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in Relation to the Pre- 
siding Eldership, 100 

YII. Some Proposed Changes in the Presiding 

Eldership, 115 

VIII. How to Make the Presiding Eldership More 

Effective and Popular, - - . 129 

IX. Governing Principles in the Administration 

OF THE Presiding Eldership, - - - 148 

Appendix, 165 

5 



PREFACE. 

The author has been induced to write upon the 
subject of ''The Presiding Eldership Structural in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church'^ by the following 
considerations : 

1. The lack^ on the part of Methodist Episcopa- 
lians and the general public^ of correct information 
concerning the ofScC;, its nature^ relations;, functions^ 
and importance. 

2. The necessity of a larger appreciation by the 
ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church of the office — its duties and responsibilities. 

3. The relation of the office to the preservation of 
our form of Episcopacy;, and to the successful ad- 
ministration of our itinerant general superintendents. 

4. The importance of preserving the office^, in its 
present form, to the future prosperity, in permanent 
expansiveness, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

5. A desire to contribute to the enhancement of 
the usefulness of the office of presiding elder. 

T. B. FOED. 
Eugene, Oregon, January 1, 1904. 

7 



BISHOP MALLALIEU'S OPINION 
OF THE BOOK. 

My Dear Brother, — I have read your manu- 
script carefully, and I may say that, to my mind, 
the book is timely, and ought to be in the hands of 
all our intelligent laymen. 

If we Judge the system of Church polity by re- 
sults, we must agree that our Church has a polity 
unsurpassed by that of any denomination in Chris- 
tendom. And it is equally clear that the Presiding 
Eldership is an absolutely essential element of our 
polity. It stands in close and very intimate relations 
to the Episcopacy, and also the rank and file of the 
ministry. This feature of our polity was needed at 
the outset, it has always been needed, for without it 
our Church would never have grown as it has. It is 
needed as much now as ever in the past. It will be 
needed more and more as the millions of our mem- 

9 



10 Bishop Mallalieu's Opinion. 

bersllip continue to multiply. Tlae increasing sol- 
idarity of Methodism is greatly to be desired. No 
factor in all our agencies and adoptions can possibly 
conduce more effectually to this end than the Pre- 
siding Eldership. 

Personally^ I thank you for the work you have 
done, and I believe you have put the entire Church 
under a lasting debt of gratitude. 

Ever truly yours, 

W. F. MALLALIEU. 
February 8, 1904. 



INTRODUCTION. 

By Bishop Cranston. 

It would seem that the careful study of any im- 
portant subject by an expert in the matters treated 
should lead to more reliable conclusions than are likely 
to be reached without deliberate inquiry and adequate 
experience. That Dr. Ford has ample experimental 
knowledge of the office of presiding elder no one 
who knows his record therein will venture to ques- 
tion. That he has been a close student of our polity, 
that he is judicial in his treatment of the subject 
in hand, and that he is able to express his thought 
clearly, will appear to any one who follows his argu- 
ment. It is not the,. province of this writer to pro- 
nounce here upon the validity of his conclusions. To 
some, doubtless, it will seem that his claims for the 
Presiding Eldership as an office are too far-reaching. 
But it is to be remembered that this feature of our 
Church polity has been often and recklessly assailed, 
and its usefulness denied by those who have had no 

11 



12 Introduction. 

experience m the ofRee and kave given little or no 
serious thougkt to its relation to our itinerant sys- 
tem. If ever there was call for a bold and vigorous 
championship of a much-abused office^ or of its incum- 
bents^ such a call is to be found in the persistent crit- 
icism of the Presiding Eldership. Nothing short of 
making an end of the pernicious contention^, or at 
least an honest endeavor to do so^ could have justified 
the undertaking of this book. 

Some who read the work will wish that it had 
appeared a year earlier. Still I trust that it may be 
published in time to be read by many before the 
meeting of the General Conference. The itinerant 
system is not worn out. Never was its usefulness 
more manifest than to-day. The wail of the organs 
of the Congregational system — if system it can be 
called — over unemployed ministers and vacant 
Churches ought to silence the cavilers in our ranks. 
And the Presiding Eldership (or its equivalent in 
some constitutional modification of the Episcopacy) 
is indispensable to the itinerancy. We have a few 
Churches that discredit the office^ and a few pastors 
who encourage such Churches in their belief that the 
^^Committee on Pastoral Supply^^ can fully represent 
their needs before the bishop. But could not these 



lNTRODUCTI0:Nr. 13 

exceptionally wealthy congregations, and for the time 
popular pastors, dispense with the bishop as well? 
It would seem so. Yet the day was in the history of 
these Churches and these pastors when presiding elder 
and bishop were of great service to both; and with 
the growth of cities and the decadence of men the 
time is almost sure to come when they will again find 
in the itinerant system — with its inevitable presiding 
elder, in some form — whatever salvation and use- 
fulness may remain for them. ISTo argument against 
the office in question can be deduced from such tem- 
porarily exceptional cases. Four-fifths of the charges 
find it of great value all of the time, and all of them 
some of the time, even in the administration of their 
own local interests. But the merest tyro in Meth- 
odism ought to know that as the bishop has many other 
important functions besides fixing the appointments, 
so the presiding elder has numerous other duties be- 
sides giving information to the bishop as to preachers 
and Churches. Indeed, his range of specific duties, as 
defined by the Discipline, is almost appalling to a 
conscientious administrator. He is practically the 
local diocesan, the only bishop who can actually be 
^^residenf ^ under our system. He it is who must be 
inspiration and experience to the young and untried 



14 Introduction. 

pastors, as he is to be alert and wise in bringing for- 
ward candidates for the ministry. He is responsible 
for the administration of discipline, the doctrinal in- 
tegrity of the pulpits in his district, the supervision of 
property interests, which local officials, busy with 
their own affairs, so often neglect. He is to see that 
pastors have fair treatment and adequate support, to 
conserve the peace of the societies, and to guard 
against their hopeless insolvency through ill-consid- 
ered building ventures. He is to promote revivals, 
to be alert in aggressive leadership, and wise in defens- 
ive strategy. To him also belongs the duty of push- 
ing forward all connectional causes in his district, 
supporting the pastor in his often-discouraged endeav- 
ors to promote the spirit of benevolence amongst his 
people. To him the great benevolent Boards of the 
Church, Missionary, Church Extension, Educational, 
and Sunday-school Union, look for reliable data to 
justify their benefactions in his territory. In short, 
he is the vinculum, or living bond, between the local 
societies and the great Church in all her evangel- 
istic, educational, and benevolent activities. 

But I must not trespass farther on the author's 
domain. I am in accord with his purpose to vindi- 
cate this feature of our polity against all criticism 



Introduction. 15 

having its source in manifestly inadequate concep- 
tions of the functions of the ofiBce. 

As to the antagonism which has its origin in the 
misinterpretation of the office^ through or by incom- 
petent and unworthy incumbents^ that is a matter 
which can be remedied bj' more careful Episcopal 
administration. To our people^ who have neither 
time nor taste for studying constructive harmonies 
or possible utilities in any sj^stem^ this office defines 
itself through its functions as illustrated by the man 
who holds it. He is the interpreter of its duties and 
possibilities of usefulness. If he fails to apprehend 
the responsibilities and uphold the dignity and honor 
of the office^ it must suffer accordingly. The Church 
will think more of it as the men who fill it make 
m.ore of it; not in the way of authority, but of service. 
The Presiding Eldership as set forth in the Disci- 
pline is a great office, charged with powers and re- 
sponsibilities enough to require the best-equipped men 
of the Church. If it has fallen into disrepute in any 
quarter, there is but one way out. That is not by 
legislation. N'o change of Discipline can help the 
case. The office must grow out of its embarrassments 
by heing actually filled. Episcopal appointment can 
not make a presiding elder. That has been a hun- 



16 iNTRODUCTlOlSr. 

died times proven. No man who has ceased to grow 
can hope to exalt this useful oflBce. Given a man 
well endowed^ honesty, tactful^ brotherly, discreet; a 
man growing in knowledge ; growing in grace and the 
spirit of devotion to God^s work ; growing in executive 
enterprise; a student of men as well as of books; a 
man of courage prophetic, and zeal apostolic, — given 
such a man, with a proper conception of this high and 
indispensable office^ and both man and office will 
grow together into commanding influence, and find 
abundant favor in the Church. 

EAEL CRANSTON, 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE HISTOEICAL SETTI^^G OP THE PEE- 
SIDING ELDEESHIP. 

The genesis of the Presiding Eldership in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church may be traced directly 
through the law of development in Methodism to an 
original source. This law has been a powerful fac- 
tor in all the growth of her wonderful organism^ and 
it still holds in every auxiliary addition to her life, 
power, and usefulness. 

Methodism is open-eyed and on the alert. She is 
susceptible and progressive, and keeps pace with the 
forward movements of the world, and abreast of all 
achievement. She anticipates great needs, and ex- 
periences no surprises for which she is not prepared. 

The office of presiding elder, as such, was not 
specifically within the scope of Mr. Wesley^s letter of 
advice to American Methodists relative to the organ- 
ization of the Church, nor was it particularly incor- 
porated in the original plan of Methodism under the 
2 17 



18 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

new order; but the thought of episcopal supervision 
was contemplated in both^ and this well-defined in- 
tention, in the larger historic interpretation, included 
the Presiding Eldership. It was really compassed 
in the scheme. 

That the episcopal form of Church government^ 
with Wesleyan modifications, was intended by the 
great English Methodist leader, his representatives 
from England, and the American founders of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, can not be successfully 
disputed. But few have had the temerity to call in 
question this apparent fact. 

It stands out so prominently in the beginning, and 
has been elucidated so fully and forcibly by the ablest 
polemical writers in the Church, and recorded with 
such confidence and clearness by impartial historians, 
that there ought to be no doubt concerning it. It is 
truly incontrovertible. 

Accordingly there was substantial unanimity 
among those who composed the famous Christmas 
Conference, called with the definite consent of, and 
in pursuance of instructions from, Mr. Wesley, and 
at which, with sufficient authority, the Methodists in 
this country were organized into a separate and in- 
dependent ecclesiastical jurisdiction under the name 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 19 

of the Methodist Episcopal Church — a name at once 
most appropriate and highly suggestive^ definitely 
and permanently identifying the organization with 
Mr. Wesley^ who was clearly entitled to this distinc- 
tion^ embodying his distinctive doctrines and char- 
acteristic methods^ indicating the form of its govern- 
ment^ and giving it standing and dignity as more than 
a simple religious movement^ limited in its operations, 
and temporary in its designs — a Church with full title 
and rights and clothed with all the functions and 
affording all the privileges of a true Church of God. 

At first the field was not large^ the operations were 
not extensive^ and the bishops traveled throughout 
the connection, giving direct, personal, and thorough 
episcopal supervision, with the aid of the elders. 

This gave general satisfaction as long as it could 
be maintained ; but the growth of the new Church in 
the rapid extension of its geographical boundaries, the 
increase in the number of its societies, and the corre- 
sponding multiplication of preachers, made it quite 
impossible for the few bishops to give the constancy 
and efficiency of supervision which characterized their 
superintendency in the day of smaller things when 
they were in closest touch with every preacher and all 
the Churches, and familiar with men and conditions. 



20 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Out of this expansion^ and the growing needs of 
the work^ together with the necessity of the presence, 
ministrations, and counsels of thoroughly-trained and 
trusted leaders with full ministerial powers, came the 
temporary designation of elders to preside in certain 
districts; such elders being appointed by the bishop, 
and the boundaries of the districts being fixed by 
him ; and upon the elders thus appointed, devolved the 
work and responsibilities of the bishop in his absence. 

This arrangement provided for all ordinary and 
immediate demands of the work, and for any possible 
exigencies that might arise while the bishop was en- 
gaged elsewhere in the performance of his duties 
as general suprintendent. The provision was pro- 
phetic, and the prophecy had its fulfillment in the 
substitution of a permanent order for what may have 
seemed a temporary expedient, by the highest leg- 
islative authorization, and in the regular and uniform 
administration of the bishops. 

Thus the Presiding Eldership originated in prac- 
tice, and became an important element in the economy 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and it has proved 
to be a feature of inestimable value in the supervision 
and enlargement of the Church. 

It was not a great while after the organization of 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 21 

the Methodist Episcopal Church before dissatisfac- 
tion arose to disturb its peace and equilibrium. Ad- 
verse criticisms of those in authority were freely in- 
dulged in by men whose views had not been accepted 
as the rule for the government of those in high official 
position^ whose counsels had become the settled policy 
in the administrations of the affairs of the Church. 
Men had been disappointed in their expectations^ if 
not in their ambitions. Widely-divergent opinions 
developed and became controlling in the temper^ ut- 
terances and conduct of those who had suddenly dis- 
covered in what they had helped to make^ the Epis- 
copacy^ a power which^ as they averred^ would be- 
come the iron hand that would^ if necessarj^, coerce 
obedience and crush what it could not compel into 
conformity to its dictum. Controversies^ increasing 
in volume and deepening in intensity, ensued relative 
to the Episcopacy, involving ultimately and neces- 
sarily, the Presiding Eldership. 

The contention, with varying aspects and degrees, 
was destined to perpetuate itself through many quad- 
renniums. The questions involved were so vital in 
their relations to the entire movement of the Church, 
and especially to the administration, that they could 
not be disposed of summarily. The time element. 



22 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

the exercise of freedom of thought, and the liberty 
of discussions were essential to a satisfactory adjust- 
ment of the serious complications. Preachers and lay- 
men generally became deeply interested, and many 
of them were zealous and active in pleading for, or 
opposing, changes in the government of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. The Church press, estab- 
lished and maintained for the defense of the order 
and honor of the Church and its authorities as one 
of its chief functions, and the independent Methodist 
publications, performed well their parts in the pro- 
longed and helpful disputation, thus demonstrating 
the good offices of the official and non-official Meth- 
odist press. 

The faith and actions of the fathers were stated 
and defended with an ability, dignity, patience, con- 
sistency, and conclusiveness which entitle the dis- 
putants on the side of the Church to great credit 
for fairness, earnestness, and service, while those who 
opposed them justified themselves by persisting with 
ingenuousness. 

The Episcopacy was assailed with great violence, 
and its incumbents were rashly charged with arbi- 
trariness, usurpation of power, and inclemency; but 
none of these things moved them from their course. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 23 

They adhered steadfastly to the plan and work com- 
mitted to them by the authority of the Church and 
the laying on of hands in consecration^ making the 
appointments^ traveling throughout the connection^ 
overseeing the temporal and spiritual interests of the 
Church, going into the regions beyond, preaching, ex- 
horting, and visiting, organizing new societies, in- 
specting the Churches, strengthening the brethren and 
feeding the flock of God, and witnessing the con- 
version of souls, the sanctification of believers, and 
great revivals. They had neither time nor disposition 
to leave the work assigned them and descend to striv- 
ing about vainglory on the one hand, or pretended 
voluntary humiliation on the other. They had been 
called to the ^^care of all the Churches,^^ and went 
about their business, which required haste and all 
their time and energy. 

The most radical changes were proposed and de- 
manded. The reformers could not be conciliated ex- 
cept by important concessions. Concessions to them, 
without the surrender, by degrees, of the things 
against which they protested, were impossible. Com- 
promise meant defeat, and defeat would have pre- 
saged dissipation. Hence, no truce could be arranged, 
much less a lasting basis of agreement. The contest 



34 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

had to be carried to its legitimate and final results^ 
and history has already recorded the logical sequences. 
Monuments more convincing and enduring than oral 
masterpieces^ black-lettered volumes^ acts of legisla- 
ture^ or oracle of judiciary, attest the fallacies of the 
protestations, the inconsiderateness of their authors, 
and the utter folly of their proposed reforms. 

It is not at all astonishing that the non-episcopal 
Methodists, in their attacks upon the Episcopacy, 
sought the modification of the Presiding Eldership 
and the impairment of its structural relations to the 
Methodist Episcopacy. The slightest success in this 
direction would have emboldened them to make more 
vigorous and ingenious invasions, and concessions, 
however trivial, would have been seized as vantage- 
ground from which to seek, with enhanced strength, 
further and more important conciliatory action, until 
Methodism would have been divested of every sem- 
blance of Episcopacy. This, doubtless, was the ul- 
terior motive of the principal agitators, and, since 
their opposition to the Episcopacy was undisguised, 
no disparagement is intended. 

It should be borne in mind, and the fact should 
have full weight in this discussion, that all attempts 
worthy of being mentioned to abolish or, to any 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 25 

considerable extent^, alter the Presiding Eldership in 
the Methodist Episcopal Churchy have for their ulti- 
mate end the modification of our Episcopacy, the 
doing away of our plan of Itinerant General Super- 
intendency, and the rendering nugatory the powers 
of the bishops as at present exercised. The abolition 
of the one means the depletion of the other. The de- 
pletion of one is the first decided step toward the 
overthrow of both. The two together are invulner- 
able. They are interlocked and interdependent. The 
Presiding Eldership, in fact, originated in an im- 
perative emergency in connection with episcopal su- 
pervision, and the permanency of the need was for- 
mally recognized by the General Conference of 1792. 
The constant and marvelous growth of the Church, in 
the expansion of her territory, the rapid increase in 
the number of her preachers, many of whom, espe- 
cially on the frontier, were unordained; the unpre- 
cedented additions to her laity, collected, but often 
imperfectly organized, into Societies scattered among 
the mountains, on the plains, and in the wilds of 
expanding Western borders; the wise conservatism 
of the General Conference in the matter of increasing 
the number of bishops, and the growing demand for 
a more perfect supervision, — have greatly empha- 



26 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

sized the importance of the specific^ formal recog- 
nition^ by the General Conference^ of this need^ and 
magnified the indispensableness and utility of the 
office of sub-general snperintendency. 

The interdependency of the Bishopric and the 
Presiding Eldership in the Episcopacy is no new doc- 
trine, though it has not been especially accentuated. 
It is imbedded in the constitution and history of 
Episcopal Methodism, and is indubitable to the phil- 
osophic student, and ought to be apparent to the 
superficial observer of Methodist Episcopal adminis- 
tration. The indissolubility of these supervisory of- 
fices, coexistent in substance, if not in fact, was well 
understood by those who endeavored with ingenuity 
and persistency, to fasten restrictions on both by mod- 
ifying one or the other, as circumstances seemed to 
facilitate their opposition. 

The first bishops of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church were fully cognizant of, and appreciated, the 
cognateness of the two offices, and viewed with alarm 
the proposed alterations in the Presiding Eldership, 
and their successors in the office have thrown the 
weight of their powerful influence in favor of per- 
petuating the present order and form of supervision 
as the most effective and satisfactory. The Church, 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 27 

as a whole;, has sustained this view from the begin- 
ning. When the report of the ^^fourteen^^ on the or- 
ganic or constitutional law of the Church was pend- 
ing in the General Conference of 1808^ action thereon 
was postponed until the question of the election of 
presiding elders bj- the Annual Conference was set- 
tled in the negative. If it had been settled in the 
aflBrmative^ there is little doubt that modifica- 
tions of great significance would have been made in 
the report of the committee. The only philosophical 
explanation of postponement is^ that in case the elec- 
tive measure carried it would become necessary to 
amend so much of the report as referred to the pro- 
tection of the Episcopacj^, or the plan of Itinerant 
Superintendency. Later^ when working under the 
laws adopted by the General Conference of 1808^, 
Joshua Soule — the great American Methodist states- 
man^ the chief author of the Eestrictive Eules and 
other constitutional regulations which formed the old 
Constitution^, and have been incorporated in the new^ 
of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy and bishop-elect 
— declined to be consecrated a bishop on the ground 
that the new provision for the election of presiding 
elders by the Annual Conferences was, in effect, to 
destroy the plan of General Superintendency. This 



28 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

act of declination was interpretative of the organic 
relationship between the Episcopacy and the Pre- 
siding Eldership. This construction was generally 
accepted by both parties^ and accordingly^ the found- 
ers of the Methodist Protestant Church rejected the 
Episcopacy in its entirety, and would have neither 
bishop nor presiding elder. And when the restrictive 
provision for an elective Presiding Eldership had been 
removed, Bishop-elect Soule was consecrated to the 
office and work of a bishop in the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. Four years was sufficient to demonstrate 
the practical wisdom, as well as the constitutionality, 
of his position. The Methodist Protestants were con- 
sistent, but their consistency did not compensate their 
Church for its loss of organic strength and efficiency 
of administration; and we have in their history and 
present status an instructive and forceful illustration 
of what would have happened, in all human probabil- 
ity, to our Methodism, had the opposers of the Bish- 
opric and the Presiding Eldership succeeded in their 
attempts to do away with these offices, or to strip 
them of their power, while the wisdom of Episcopal 
Methodists, and the power of Episcopal Methodism, 
have been shown in a prosperity that has no parallel 
in the history of denominationalism. 



The Pkesidixct Eldership Structural. 29 

The position of Dr. Soule was eminently correct, 
and his unwavering course was conducive to large 
and beneficial results. By his unfaltering adherence 
to the Constitution as he interpreted it^ he saved the 
Church from dissipating her power^ conserved her 
forces, and stamped the immobility of his purpose 
upon the name, character, and splendid destiny of 
Episcopal Methodism, in all branches and in all 
climes. 

As already intimated, the question of making the 
oflfice of presiding elder elective protruded itself into 
the discussions of nearly every General Conference 
up to and including that of 1824. 

In 1808, when the organic laws of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church were adopted, the proposition to 
make the office elective was defeated by a majority of 
21 in a total vote of 125, while in 1812 the majority 
was only 3. This was a narrow escape from the doom 
of non-episcopal Methodism, which is an ism^ if not a 
fanatic-ism without method. 

The promoters of this scheme, encouraged by the 
close vote of 1812, continued the agitation through 
successive quadrenniums, and in 1820, the measure 
was adopted. It was at this time that Joshua Soule, 
with true insight and fidelity to the Constitution of 



30 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

the Methodist Episcopal Churchy declined to be conse- 
crated bishop. This bold and judicious stand by a 
truly great leader checked the aggressive movements 
of the reformers^ the incoming tide of ecclesiastical 
latitudinarianism was turned back^ the aggressors 
withdrew^ and formulated a system embodying^ as 
distinguishing, the chief features of their conten- 
tion, and Episcopal Methodism, rehabilitated, came 
forth with power sufficiently concentrated to execute 
its plans, and yet so restricted that it could not be- 
come an instrument of permanent oppression to any 
Church or to any man. 

All the advocates of making the office of presiding 
elder elective did not, however, withdraw from the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Consequently the ques- 
tion remained with us, surviving the organization of 
the Methodist Protestant Church, has been agitated 
at intervals with greater or less strength and per- 
sistency, and is not without a following to-day, w^hieh, 
if not checkmated by timely and convincing argu- 
mentation, may develop into a powerful minority with 
maleficent influence upon the whole Church. 

This controversy, one of the bitterest in the his- 
tory of American Methodism, will not subside entirely 
as long as we have among us ministers of non-episco- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 31 

pal proclivities^ and with Congregational Methodist 
tendencies vaunted before the Church. 

It seems fortunate that the proposition to take the 
appointment of the presiding elders out of the hands 
of the bishops^ and confer it^ as an elective franchise^ 
upon the Annual Conference^ has never been crowned 
with permanent success; that the plan of the fathers 
has been adhered to^ and is now the established order^ 
and that we have a Presiding Eldership without dim- 
inution. 

Since conditions in all spheres of public activity 
have changed^ the formative period has given way 
to that which is relatively mature^ the Church has 
advanced to a position of permanency and capable- 
ness in the establishment of societies^ and the erec- 
tion of church edifices with modern conveniences^ and 
the organization and equipment of auxiliaries thor- 
oughly adjusted and harmoniously working with in- 
creasing efficiency^ and composed of representative^ 
intelligent;, godly, and influential laymen, and the 
whole body of the laity is possessed with superior, 
general, and denominational intelligence, and is ac- 
tuated by the spirit of loyalty, devotion, and lib- 
erality; and since a large number of our preachers 
are ^^in orders,'^ it is insisted, with apparent reason- 



32 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

ableness^ that the office of presiding elder is no longer 
a necessity, but an expensive and almost useless lux- 
ury in our economy, and some say a real obstruction 
to the perfect working of the Methodist Episcopal 
system. 

The premises are well taken, but the conclusion is 
unwarranted and fallacious. This is a superficial and 
misleading view of the situation in its more im- 
portant aspects, and particularly so far as its bear- 
ing upon the Presiding Eldership is concerned. 

We must go beyond temporary, and even perma- 
nent, conditions in business, in society, and in Church- 
life, to find an adequate reason for the office of pre- 
siding elder, and for the facts relevant to the ques- 
tions of its continuance, modification, or abolition. 
We must look into the character of the organization 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the justification 
inheres in the Constitution and the course of admin- 
istrative events, and the need is as permanent as the 
Church itself. 

We maintain, therefore, that the same reasons 
which induced Bishop Asbury, following the advice 
of Mr. Wesley and the order of Providence, to pro- 
vide for this office, and led the organizers of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church to incorporate it as an inte- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 33 

grant feature of our itinerant system^ and to make 
it appointive, exists now, and with greater intensity 
for continuing it. Every condition offered in justi- 
fication of the plea for the radical modification or 
abolition of the office, accentuates the importance 
and necessity of it, if Episcopal Methodism is to be 
perpetuated and to prosper. 

The office was a necessity in the early days of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. It has been indis- 
pensable in every stage of her progress. It is more 
necessary to the satisfactory working of our sys- 
tem at the present than at any previous time in our 
history. 

All may not accede to the correctness of these 
statements. Some, while acquiescing in the first and 
second, wdll probably dissent from the last. 

There is confusion among Methodists, and even 
among Methodist Episcopalians, on this subject, and 
information is both needed and sought. 

I do not expect, nor do I ask, any reader to take 
these statements without the fullest investigation. 

Let the most searching inquiry be made, not in the 
spirit of partisanship, but with frankness, impar- 
tiality, and thoroughness. 
3 



CHAPTEE 11. 

THE NATUEE OF THE OFFICE OP PEE- 
SIDING ELDEE. 

That there is much confusion in the public mind, 
and even among ministers and members of our own 
Church, concerning the office of presiding elder in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, is evident to all 
careful observers of current conditions and discus- 
sions. Such confusion will, if not cleared up by the 
statement of illuminative and indisputable facts, 
deepen into entanglements which will necessarily 
involve all the related forces in the administration 
of our policy, and greatly weaken, if not destroy, 
the system in its completeness. 

Thoughtful men within the Church know the 
trend of these lamentable conditions, and are appre- 
hensive of evil consequences, while those without, who 
are opposed to our form of Church government, pre- 
dict its speedy collapse. Some of these dismal proph- 
ecies are uttered by men in our own ranks. 

34 



The Presidi:n^g Eldership Structural. 35 

I am neither a pessimist nor an alarmist. I would 
be optimistic without being utopian. I would not 
close my eye to the true light;, but only to the light 
that is darkness. I am conservative^ but I am not an 
incorrigible fogy. I am not afraid of the march of 
TimC;, but court the lessons of experience and covet 
the wisdom of the fathers. I believe in progress when 
it is not retrogression^ in improvement when it does 
not tend to depletion. While the dangerous trend of 
certain conditions must be recognized and vigorously 
dealt with^ it is needless to become alarmed. The 
good Ship of Church is in safe hands^ and will sur- 
vive the perils of ^'^calm and storm/^ and the dam- 
ages of inexperienced navigators. If on the dry- 
dock for quadrennial examination, repairs, and addi- 
tions, she will sail again all the better. If on the 
high seas bearing precious cargoes to all the princi- 
pal ports of the world, she will outweather the gale, 
and anchor again in the harbor of her home port 
without disappointment to her captain or loss of 
chart or compass, rudder or sail. 

Eecognizing, as we do, the tendencies alluded 
to, the time has fully come when the nature of the 
Presiding Eldership should be set forth with such 
lucidness and conclusiveness that the office will be 



36 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

put upon its proper historic basis, and beyond the 
reach of hurtful criticism, angry caprice, or hasty 
legislation, if not entirely outside the ordinary legis- 
lative processes. 

There are many Methodist Episcopalians who 
could not give an intelligent definition of the office 
nor an accurate description of its powers. Hence 
many misleading designations of the office itself, and 
some fearful mutterings as to the influence of pre- 
siding elders over pastors and Churches, and in con- 
trolling appointments and molding the legislation of 
the Church. They are charged with making laws 
and the appointments. If they have intelligence and 
influence, they should be sent back to the pastorate 
as if they were not pastors. These are the results 
of misconceptions of the nature of the office. 

First of all, therefore, we must determine the 
nature of the Presiding Eldership. In determining 
this we must again advert to its historic environment. 

What was the evident intention of Mr. Wesley, 
Dr. Coke, and Francis Asbury, and their coad- 
jutors, in the organization of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church so far as the Presiding Eldership is 
concerned ? 

While the office with its technical terms of des- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 37 

ignation was not specifically mentioned in the ad- 
vices of Mr. Weslej^;, nor in the Minutes of the first 
Conference^ it was^ with all the powers with which 
it was subsequentl}^ clothed^ clearly included in the 
plan of Episcopacy^ and particularly in the recom- 
mendation that a few select men be ordained to the 
office of elder^ to take the place^ and exercise the 
functions of ruling elders in the apostolic Churchy 
an Eldership endowed with ruler sliip to which St. 
Paul refers in his Epistle to Timothy, saying, "Let 
the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double 
honor, especially they who labor in word and doc- 
trine.'' 

It is evident that Dr. Coke and Francis Asbury 
so understood Mr. Wesley, and their course in the 
Conferences in ordaining a limited number of men 
to the office of elder, and in their administration in 
appointing such to serve in certain districts, must 
be taken as indicative of their construction both of 
the intent of Mr. Wesley and the design of the rules 
adopted by the Conference and worthy of the highest 
acceptance. 

Hence, in due course of time, the office, with a 
becoming and suggestive appellation, the Presiding 
Eldership, was evolved out of the system; not ere- 



38 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

ated and added to the system^ but an evolution. I 
believe in this kind of evolution. 

The process was not that of creating something 
new^ and grafting it on the original^ but that of rec- 
ognizing and naming that which was in the begin- 
ning with Wesley, and was Wesleyan and Asburian^ 
existing in organic intent; and the entire legislation 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church relative to this of- 
fice^ as well as to the Bishopric^ the larger factor in 
the Episcopacy, has proceeded upon this assumption, 
and has, therefore, been directed mainly to defining 
its powers and prescribing its duties. 

The conduct of the reformers, and the course 
of those who opposed them, can not be explained 
satisfactorily on any other hypothesis. 

Joshua Soule, the chief author of the restric- 
tions written in the Constitution of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, was not only contemporary with 
Asbury, but a presiding elder for twelve years be- 
fore the death of the bishop, was necessarily closely 
associated with him, had abundant opportunity and 
frequent occasion to confer with him, and doubt- 
less imbibed much of the spirit and absorbed many 
of the views of his sagacious superior ; and the stand 
he took in 1830 in unswerving fealty to his convic- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 39 

tion as to the meaning of the constitutional inhibi- 
tions^ is an indication that he regarded the Presiding 
Eldership as structural in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

If it was the purpose of Mr. Wesley, Coke, and 
Asbury, and the aim of the Organizing Conference 
and of the Constitution, as seems reasonably clear, 
to include the Presiding Eldership in some form, to 
be thereafter determined as circumstances required, 
in our plan of Episcopacy as an Itinerant Superin- 
tendency, and if all the perfected and permanent leg- 
islation of the Church is in harmony with this view, 
the office has organic intent, and is not subject to 
structural changes except by the constitutional process, 
if indeed it is not positively under the protection 
which makes it impossible to do away with it. 

We have established beyond consistent recall the 
precedent of interpreting the Constitution and laws 
of the Church in the light of the circumstances of 
their historic setting. That which was in the mind 
of the lawmaker is the correct interpretation of the 
law. 

Let us adhere to the rule and maintain consistency. 
Consistency is a jewel in interpretations of law as 
well as in life. If the rule held with inexorableness 



40 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

in the exclusion of women from the General Confer- 
ence^ and in other judicial decisions^, it should hold 
in the inclusion of the Presiding Eldership in our 
plan of Superintendency. If the intent, whether as- 
certained beyond the possibility of question or by 
reasonable inference, excludes^ it should also include. 
The rule must work both ways. 

From the historic environment of the Presiding 
Eldership it may be reasonably inferred that it was 
the original intention of the framers of our system 
to include the office in the plan of Episcopacy, or 
Superintendency, and is^, therefore, a development, 
and illustrates the developmental power of the 
original germ. The first concept was general. His- 
tory has opened its possibility of detail. The growth 
of our wonderful system has not been so much that 
of invention as that of discovery. The prompt and 
adequate response of our form of government to new 
conditions, as they have appeared in the evolutionary 
processes of history, has shown its inexhaustible com- 
prehensiveness. Mr. Wesley, walking in the light of 
apostolic example, drew a great plan; the Fathers, 
in entering upon the construction of the building, 
followed the specifications, and all the builders suc- 
ceeding them have adhered to the detailed drawings, 
as God; the Supreme Architect, has given them to 4fee. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 41 

In this plan the Presiding Eldership is as an 
extension of the Episcopacy. 

What, therefore, is the nature in particular of this 
office? 

1. It implies, as necessarily inclusive, though it 
is not in itself, an order in the ministry. 

We have pronounced against the doctrine of three 
orders in the ministry and maintain that there are 
but two, — the Diaconate and the Eldership. The 
Presiding Eldership includes both, but has special 
reference to the latter as the highest. 

^^The elder^^ is a phrase in common use amorg 
us, and is a respectful form of designating the officer, 
and at the same time expressive of some of the 
functions of the office, but it is lacking in accuracy 
and comprehensiveness. The omission of the more 
definitely descriptive word ^'^presiding'^ is not ordi- 
narily intentional, but is objectionable because, if 
strictly construed, it would leave the office without 
that authoritativeness to which it is entitled in our 
economy. The common designation is unintention- 
ally incomplete. It would apply as fittingly to any 
man who has been ordained an elder. It does not 
sufficiently describe the office of presiding elder in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 



42 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Originally it was the intention tkat the elder 
should administer the sacraments^ and he did this 
almost exclusively; for there were but few ordained 
ministers in the connection for a while. But neces- 
sity required the further and gradual extension of the 
ministerial function^ and^ as this was done^ baptism 
and the Lord^s Supper^, especially the former^ were 
administered in his absence; but when he was pres- 
ent^ as a rule^ these privileges were accorded to him, 
not as privileges merely^ but as rights inhering in the 
office. Accordingly the custom was universal in the 
earlier history of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 
the elder to administer both sacraments, and partic- 
ularly the Holy Communion. 

This was in harmony with the intentions of the 
Fathers and the provision of the Presiding Elder- 
ship. This custom remains with us, and is quite 
general to-day, and the administration of the Supper 
of our Lord, is left almost exclusively to the presiding 
elder in many parts of the Church. 

This is ordinarily supposed to be a habit which 
has grown up under the law of courtesy, and on the 
principle of preferring one another in honor; but 
it is more. It has a deeper significance. It finds 
adequate cause and explanation in the real character 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 43 

of the office as unfolded in the evolution of Episco- 
pacy. The preacher in charge^ if in full orders^, may 
do these things with propriety and of rights when it 
is necessary, in the absence of the presiding elder; 
but when he comes to hold the quarterly-meetings, 
and is present in his official capacity, he has rights 
which ought not to be called in question. The serv- 
ice is his. He is not simply a visitor; he is no sup- 
planter, nor usurper. He is there by authority, and 
has authority; is in charge, not only of the service, 
but also of the pastor and the Church; and although 
the pastor be clothed with full ministerial powers, 
he may not of right displace the presiding elder, 
or exercise the authority which belongs to him. 

And these duties he performs, and these prerog- 
atives he exercises, not simply as an elder. As such 
he has no right to enter the charge with a view to 
performing any of the duties of the pastor, but as 
presiding elder, and these rights are clearly within 
the nature of the office, and are guarded by the un- 
varjdng usage of the Church. 

It is not the pastor^s place to assume to extend 
courtesy to his presiding elder in permitting him to 
take the service to baptize, to administer the Eucha- 
rist, and to do all and several the duties which the 



44 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Church has devolved upon him as an officer^ but the 
duty of the presiding elder to be courteous to the 
pastor^ and his position being one of authority^ it 
becomes all the more important and necessary that 
he be a wise man and gentle^ not self-assertive, but 
modesty knowing how to blend the grace of courtesy 
with the dignity of authority^ and showing those per- 
sonal kindnesses which become one superior to one 
inferior in rank. 

The presiding elder is therefore, first of all, an 
elder, with the distinctive rulership implied in the 
Presiding Eldership. 

2. Although the Presiding Eldership is, in the 
first place, the highest order in the ministry, by im- 
plication, according to the teaching of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, the office of presiding elder does 
not inhere in the Eldership. It is possible for a man 
to be an elder in our Church and not a presiding 
elder ; but a man can not be a presiding elder without 
being an elder. The Eldership is not only an admin- 
istrative prerequisite, but a sine qua non in the Pre- 
siding Eldership. 

To be eligible to be appointed by a bishop to 
preside in any district a man must have been or- 
dained to the office of elder in the Methodist Epis- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 45 

copal Church. This was primarily so^ the admirds- 
tration has been uniform, and this is the present 
order. 

Many elders have desired the office of presiding 
elder, who never entered into the experience. They 
died without the sight. Some of them drank the 
waters of Meribah, and fell in the wilderness. 

All presiding elders are elders, but all elders are 
not presiding elders. 

This maj^ seem paradoxical, but it is the condi- 
tion in the theory and the practice of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

It is rather unique, but it is thoroughly practical, 
easy of adjustment, simple in its operations and pow- 
erfully effective in denominational expansion and 
achievement. 

3. The Presiding Eldership is a sub-Bishopric. 

Our form of Episcopacy is an Itinerant Superin- 
tendenc}^, inhering, without possible molestation, in 
the Constitution of the Church, with fixed qualifica- 
tions, prescribed methods of election and appoint- 
ment, and securely defined powers and Disciplinary 
duties. 

The plan, in its larger development and appli- 
cation, includes bishops and presiding elders. The 



46 The Pkesiding Eldership Structural. 

bishop is primal in development^ rank^ and recogni- 
tion^ though not antecedent in origin. The Presiding 
Eldership is secondary in the order of disclosure and 
degree of dignity. The bishop is primary; the pre- 
siding elder is a subordinate. The Bishopric is the 
superior office; the Presiding Eldership is the in- 
ferior office. 

The Presiding Eldership is made inferior by four 
well-known conditions : 

(1) A bishop may exercise some powers which a 
presiding elder can not exercise under any circum- 
stances. 

(2) A presiding elder may exercise certain dis- 
tinctive and high episcopal prerogatives only in the 
absence of a bishop. 

(3) The jurisdiction of a bishop is general and 
without limitations^ while that of the presiding elder 
is limited to certain geographical boundaries fixed by 
a bishop. 

(4) By the election of a bishop by the General 
Conference, his special consecration, and his life ten- 
ureship in the oflBce. 

These limitations upon the rank of the Presiding 
Eldership are thoroughly intrenched in the polity of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the administra- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 47 

tion of fke bishops and the presiding elders, and in 
the approval of our ministry and laity, they are 
permanent. 

IfsTotwithstanding, the two offices have a common 
origin in onr Plan of Episcopacy, bear the same im- 
press, and exercise similar and, for the most part, 
the same powers, and perform the same duties as sev- 
erally prescribed by the General Conference. 

Beyond question there inheres in the Presiding 
Eldership certain episcopal prerogatives which en- 
titles it to the rank of a sub-Bishopric. It is the dioc- 
esan Episcopacy of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
We have in the Presiding Eldership a districted 
Bishopric, and need no other. 

4. The Presiding Eldership is administrative. 

This necessarily belongs to the episcopal charac- 
ter of the office. It is clearly seen in its origin. It 
has been recognized in all the legislation of the 
Church. It is illustrated in the practical work of 
the incumbents of the office. 

It was designed to be administrative as well as 
ministerial in its functions. It is occupied largely 
with questions of administration. The administra- 
tion of the laws and varied interests of the Church 
devolves upon the presiding elder under Disciplinary 



48 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

directions and restrictions. He is an administrator 
of the laws and affairs of the Church within the 
bounds of his district. He is amenable to the bishop 
who has episcopal supervision, and to his Annual 
Conference, to which he must give account as an 
administrative officer of the Church. 

5. The Presiding Eldership is inherent. 

The office inheres in the Constitution of the 
Church. It has its foundation and protection in the 
established, unalterable, and distinguishing episcopal 
feature of our Church polity. Its existence is not de- 
pendent upon the will of a bishop, nor upon the 
pleasure of an Annual Conference, nor yet upon the 
capricious action of the General Conference. 

The Bishopric of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
is perpetual. The personnel of the Bishopric may 
change, but the Bishopric changes not. It is not sub- 
ject to change. It is grounded in constitutional re- 
strictions. The General Conference is under abso- 
lute limitations so far as the Bishopric is concerned. 

The Presiding Eldership is like unto the Bish- 
opric. Changes may occur in the personnel thereof, 
under the operations of law and at the pleasure of a 
bishop, but the office itself may not be discontinued, 
nor modified by the action of an Annual Conference 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 49 

or the administration of an incumbent of the episco- 
pal oflBce. It is perpetual. It rests upon the same 
ground^ is under like protection^ and is coexistent 
with the Bishopric^, with diocesan limitations upon 
its operations. 

While it devolves upon a bishop to appoint pre- 
siding elders^ under whatever restrictions the Gren- 
eral Conference may rightfully impose upon the ap- 
pointing power, he may not arbitrarily decline to fill 
the oflBce. When a district has been formed, and it 
is the prerogative and duty of a bishop having charge 
of an Annual Conference to form the districts ac- 
cording to his judgment, the obligation to appoint a 
presiding elder is imperative. 

Propositions made from time to time to abolish 
this office, or to modify it, overlook its inherency, and 
assume that it is a legislative appendage to our system, 
and therefore without constitutional protection, and 
subject to changes affecting its character by the or- 
dinary method of legislation. 

This erroneous conception is quite prevalent^ and 
should be corrected. 

If the office of presiding elder is episcopal in char- 
acter, design, and operation, has a common origin 
with the Bishopric in our Plan of Superintendency, 
4 



50 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

inheres in the Episcopacy, and is perpetual, it cer- 
tainly must be rooted in the Constitution, and under 
the security of the Eestrictive Eules relative to our 
Episcopacy. 

Presiding elders may be changed at the session 
of an Annual Conference, or in the interim, by a 
bishop, whose power is supreme in this respect, and 
may be exercised at will; but the officer abides, and 
will, until the polity of our Church is completely 
revolutionized and the Methodist Episcopal plan of 
Itinerant Superintendency is destroyed or radically 
changed. 

The Bishopric is a General Superintendency; the 
Presiding Eldership is a Diocesan Superintendency. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EELATIOXS OF THE PEESIDING 
ELDEESHIP. 

The relations of the Presiding Eldership in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church are manifold^ extensive^ 
and influential. They are organic^ and affect every 
part of the whole. They originate in the nature of the 
office as essential attributes^ are imbedded in the un- 
written law of the Churchy are clearly defined in 
statutory provisions^ have found actualization in the 
history of our expansion and compactness;, and are 
impregnably established in the order and usage of the 
Church to-day. 

They are structural^ and hold the office in vital 
touch with every element^ severally and conjointly^ in 
the unity of the administration^ and with all the 
diversified interests forming the entirety of our world- 
wide movement. 

They are^ therefore, of the greatest importance, 
and a careful study of them in detailed ramification 

51 



52 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

will tend to enlightenment, and enhance the useful- 
ness of the ofl&ce of presiding elder, and invest it with 
a new interest among onr people. 

1. The relation of the office to a bishop. 

The Episcopacy with us is a generic term, com- 
prehending the Bishopric and the Presiding Elder- 
ship. It includes bishops and presiding elders. As 
previously stated, bishops are general superintend- 
ents, and presiding elders are diocesan superin- 
tendents. 

The Episcopacy is a unit. It is composed of many. 

An individual bishop is a superior representative 
of the highest officiary of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and is a full Episcopus anywhere in the con- 
nection, without restrictions upon his powers, or lim- 
itations upon the exercise of his functions, excepting 
those that the laws of prudence, harmony, and cour- 
tesy have established. These are self-imposed, and 
may be thrown off without infraction of law, and 
without apology other than that the ^^exigencies of 
the work required it.^^ ^^Exigencies^^ are in them- 
selves a law, in the keeping of which there is the 
hiding of a multitude of official discourtesies as well 
as of power. Presiding elders are inferior represent- 
atives, are subordinate under prescribed conditions, 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 53 

and are limited to practical administration to dis- 
trict boundaries; but their relations are not thus 
bounded and limited. They represent the bishop, 
and must be to him eyes to see, ears to hear, feet to 
walk, hands to handle, heart to feel, mind to plan, 
will to execute, and the medium, ordinarily, of com- 
munication between him and the preachers and 
Churches of their districts, and the bond that unites 
and holds them in direct relationship to the Bishopric, 
and under Episcopal supervision. 

The presiding elder must advise the bishop when 
absent, and, under the present arrangement, this is 
nearly all the time, and we would not change it, as 
to the condition of the various temporal and spiritual 
interests of the Churches over which the Church has 
appointed them as joint overseers, but not of equal 
rank. 

The presiding elder is the bishop^s adviser, and his 
recommendations are in the very nature of things 
advisory, and are entitled to all the weight the Con- 
stitution and laws of the Church and the standing 
of the officer for opportunity, intelligence, experience, 
watchfulness, loyalty to the Church, and faithfulness 
to his superior, give them. 

In forming the districts, changing the names and 



54 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

boimdaries of charges, and in making the appoint- 
ments of the preacherS;, the presiding elder is closely 
related to the bishop. These are episcopal functions, 
and the Presiding Eldership is inseparable from the 
General Superintendency in their exercise in the or- 
dinary course of administration. The presiding elder 
must, therefore, bear his full share of the responsi- 
bility in the making of the plan and the appoint- 
ments. 

'No presiding elder can afford to ignore his rela- 
tion and responsibility to the bishop at any time, and 
especially during and immediately after the session 
of an Annual Conference. The presiding elder who 
would seek to shield himself from the animadver- 
sions of disappointed Churches and disgruntled 
preachers, after the appointments have been made, by 
throwing all the responsibility and blame upon the 
departed bishop, is unworthy the office, and deserves 
the contempt which sooner or later will be visited 
upon him by all concerned. Whether the appoint- 
ment complained of was made on his recommendation 
or without it, or over his protest, his relation is such 
that he bears responsibleness in the matter, and only 
under the most extraordinary circumstances should 
he attempt to deliver himself therefrom. He may 



The Presiding Eldership Structural, 55 

save others^ but himself lie can rarely save from the 
^Svrath to come^^ from those whom he has been iin- 
able to please. 

The relation of the presiding elder to the bishop 
requires that he furnish him with all possible infor- 
mation and afford him every facility for ascertaining 
all facts and conditions pertaining to the Churches 
and the preachers^ and have to do with the making 
of the appointments, and that he share with the 
bishop, not only the knowledge he possesses, but the 
accountability for the results of their joint delib- 
erations. 

Every presiding elder should strive, with all good 
will, sound judgment, and true devotion to his breth- 
ren and the Churches committed to his charge, to 
maintain, in fullness of integrity, power and use- 
fulness, his relations to the bishop, and thus work out 
the legitimate purposes of the office, and give intel- 
ligent aid in giving high-grade episcopal service to 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

2. The relation of the office of presiding elder to 
the preachers and Churches of the district. 

This relation is perhaps not fully understood even 
by some presiding elders. It takes time and expe- 



56 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

rience to come into the closer relations^ and under the 
greater responsibilities of the office. The office and 
the officer can not be separated in this relationship. 
They stand together^ and the responsibility involved 
attaches equally to both. The officer is simply the. 
office in action. Both are in direct contact with the 
preachers and their charges. The relation carries 
with it the charge of the preachers and the super- 
vision of the charges. It is one of authority and over- 
sight. It implies special interest and helpfulness. 
In unwritten law^ assuming form and power^ in in- 
variable usage^ it holds in the important matters of 
representing the preachers^ their abilities, adaptation, 
effectiveness, needs, and wishes, and the condition of 
the Churches in material and spiritual prosperity, and 
co-operative loyalty to denominational interests to 
the bishops having immediate supervision by assign- 
ment of his colleagues, with a view to a proper and 
wise adjustment of the relations between the two in 
making the appointments on the basis of equity, im- 
partiality, and efficiency of the pastoral service. 

It therefore devolves upon the presiding elder to 
be diligent in oversight, thorough in examination, ex- 
haustive in investigation, careful and profound in 



The Presiding Eldeeship Structural. 57 

analysis, fair in judgment^ accurate as to details, un- 
faltering in devotion, and faithful and just in rep- 
resentation. 

He must know the preachers and the Churches, 
and be familiar with the results of the toil of the 
two in united endeavor, and with the circumstances 
under which thej^ have accomplished them. 

The relation is, therefore, one of extreme deli- 
cacy, great difficulty, and grave responsibility, and 
one to be entered into with fear and trembling. Ig- 
norance, indifference, dilatoriness, lack of sjonpathy 
or of firmness or of frankness, on the part of the 
presiding elder, may put a preacher in a wrong po- 
sition before a Church or a bishop, and cause him 
serious disappointment and anguish, subject his fam- 
ily to social and educational disadvantages, and retard 
the progress of some Church, if not practically disrupt 
and destroy it. An incompetent presiding elder may 
well be dreaded by preachers and Churches; he is 
positively dangerous. His relations make him ordi- 
narily their spokesman to the bishop, and the deter- 
miner, in great measure, of their place, opportunity, 
and usefulness and prosperity in the work of the 
ministry. 

The standing and success of every preacher under 



58 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

a presiding elder will be affected^, more or less, by him, 
and his influence upon the Churches of his district is 
direct and far-reaching. His relation, then, well-nigh 
involves the whole question of the destiny of preach- 
ers and the harmony and success of the Churches. 
No other man in our economy stands in a more im- 
portant and influential relation to preachers and 
Churches. The relation is one that inheres in law, 
is well defined in established usage, should be better 
understood and more fully appreciated, and it 
should carry with it the full measure of the respon- 
sibility which belongs to it. Let presiding elders 
be held to strict accountability by the preachers, whose 
servants they are ; but let the preachers be charitable 
and patient. 

3. The relation of the presiding elder to other 
presiding elders and the preachers and Churches of 
the other districts of his Annual Conference. 

The oSice is larger than the geographical bound- 
aries of any district, and the incumbent ought to be 
as large as his oflBce. 

While his jurisdiction is limited, as far as the ex- 
ercise of certain specified powers is concerned, to his 
district, he necessarily stands related to every other 
in the Church, as parts of the whole^ and especially 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 59 

so to those of his own Conference. And he has more 
or less to do with an intelligent service to their 
preachers and Churches. 

When he stands and acts in the Conference ses- 
sions^ sits with the bishop in what we call^ by com- 
mon consent^ the "Cabinet/^ he is not only the rep- 
resentative of the district over which he has presided, 
but in a general and most important sense as that of 
every Church and every preacher identified with the 
Conference^, and has part in the privilege^ anxiety^ 
and labor of the entire plan of adjustments. He is 
brought into closest relations to his colleagues in of- 
fice^ and has voice and influence in making every 
appointment^ and determining the opportunities of 
ministers for success, usefulness, and fame, and in 
sending to the Churches that type of ministerial abil- 
ity and the kind of pastoral oversight they need in 
order to maintain themselves, increase their power, 
and enhance their good. Many a presiding elder 
has been helped by the timely suggestion or wise and 
brotherly counsel of his colleague, or hindered by his 
stupidity or arbitrariness, or both. It has often hap- 
pened that preachers have been relieved of embarrass- 
ment, gratified, and given well-earned promotion, by 
the thoughtfulness and skill of a presiding elder 



60 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

other than their own. This was no meddling with 
other men^s matters, but within the purview of au- 
thority;, and a perfectly legitimate transaction. More 
of this kind of ^^interference^^ would be good for all 
concerned. On the other hand, deserving men have 
been held back from their rightful position, and cir- 
cumscribed in their influence, and crippled for life, 
by the lack of interdistrict freedom in the matter 
of exchanges. Geographical lines have bounded the 
vision of some presiding elders, and they could not 
exercise their gifts in the larger sphere. A good 
knowledge of all the men of a Conference is necessary 
to a presiding elder in these broader relations, and 
an understanding of the principles of promotion and 
ingenuity in applying them. 

4. The relation of the presiding elder and his 
office to the entire ministry and membership of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Ours is a connectionalism. The Churches form a 
complete whole ; we are one. Our membership is one 
body, ^^fitly joined together by that which every joint 
supplieth according to the effectual working in the 
measure of every part, and maketh increase,^^ and 
groweth up in Him who is the head in all things. 
And our ministry is bound together in one by the 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 61 

indissoluble ties of the itinerancy. Our ministers con- 
stitute a fraternity^ and thej^ might with propriety 
be called the Fraternity of Itinerant Ministers. 

Annual Conference and district boundaries are 
mere conveniences for administrative purposes^ and 
are in no sense restrictions upon the general rights be- 
longing to the itinerant ministers of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. And no presiding elder can free 
himself from relationship to each member thereof, 
nor shun the obligation he bears to his brethren. As 
a minister he is part of the whole, and as an officer 
he is an officer of the whole. He may, by silence, 
or partial or false representation, bias a Church or 
a bishop in favor of an incompetent and inefficient 
man, thereby securing for him a temporary advan- 
tage which will prove his undoing, and ^^the last 
state of the man will be worse than the first.^^ Be- 
sides, a Church will be temporarily embarrassed, if 
not permanently injured. Or, by innuendo or sub- 
tlety, he may prevent the advancement of a worthy 
minister to a position where his happiness would 
be complete, his opportunities for study and doing 
good greatly multiplied, and his chances for further 
promotion increased. Bishops, presiding elders, and 
Churches have been outrageously imposed upon by 



62 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

the silence or misleading statements or misinterpre- 
tations of presiding elders^ and the most disastrous 
results have followed; while on the other side they 
have been intelligently^ impartially^ and beneficially 
served, and the eflEects have been most gratifying. A 
presiding elder must serve the whole Church. 

5. The relation of the Presiding Eldership to 
the General Connectional Institutions and Benevolent 
Causes of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

This is one of the most important relations of the 
office of the presiding elder. It may be helpful or 
otherwise. 

The bishops who have the oversight of all the 
temporal and spiritual concerns of the Church, the 
agents of our Book Concerns, the corresponding sec- 
retaries of the Missionary Society, Board of Church 
Extension, Ereedmen^s Aid and Southern Educa- 
tion Society, the Board of Education, the Sunday- 
school Union and Tract Societies, the editors of our 
periodical publications, presidents of our universi- 
ties, theological seminaries, and the representatives 
of the eleemosynary institutions of the Church, know 
the relation of the Presiding Eldership to these va- 
rious interests, and the indispensableness of the 
office in the dissemination of information concerning 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 63 

them^ in promoting their hold upon the thought and 
affection of the preachers in securing proper attention 
of the pastors to these things^ and holding the people 
to their loyal and liberal support. 

The Presiding Eldership has been an important 
factor in bringing these causes to their present state 
of power^ effectiveness^ and popularity. ISTo other 
position in the Church has exerted a greater influ- 
ence in making them what they are to-day. And these 
causes and institutions to which the Church is com- 
mitted^ and which are committed to the Churches^ 
will continue to prosper in proportion as the Pre- 
siding Eldership embodies and brings into play the 
vitalizing elements of intelligence^ fidelity to trust, 
persistency in representation^ and power in enforc- 
ing their claims upon pastors and people. The des- 
tiny of these is locked up in the Presiding Eldership 
as in no other office in our Church. 

6. The relation of the Presiding Eldership to the 
extension of Methodism. 

This office was intended to be the missionary 
agency of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy and it 
has not fallen short of its intention. 

The presiding elder was to be the pioneer of the 
Churchy and he has fulfilled the highest expectations. 



64 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

He kas been the ^^John the Baptist^^ in all our his- 
tory^ the forerunner; bnt^ nnlike him, was not to 
decrease, but to increase. His has been the voice 
crying in the wilderness of this country, preaching 
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven at 
hand. It has been one of his peculiar duties, one 
of his greatest privileges, and one of his highest 
joys, to look through the open door, and "behold 
the fields white unto harvest.^^ He has heard the 
distant call, and traveled from the frozen borders 
of Northern Maine to the big swamps of Florida; 
from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico; from 
the headwaters of the Missouri to the delta of the Mis- 
sissippi ; from British Columbia to Old Mexico ; from 
the St. Lawrence to the Kio Grande ; from Louisiana 
to Alaska; and from the rock-ribbed coast of the At- 
lantic to the golden shores of the Pacific. He has 
traveled the world round. 

The presiding elders of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church have pioneered the way of civilization, carved 
the way through the mountains, and opened a path 
and constructed a highway for the Church. It has 
always been expected that the presiding elder, like 
Paul at Troas, would be the first to see the "Man 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 65 

of Macedonia/^ and hear his cry from the region 
beyond, enforced by religious destitution, spiritual 
desolation, and the peril and claims of the lost; and 
he has usually been the first on the field to take 
possession of it in the name of the King of kings 
and the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to erect 
the cross and plant the flag. 

He has penetrated every part of the continent, 
and the lines of his official power have extended to 
the ends thereof, and do girdle the globe. 

And when the record is completed, and the ^TDOoks 
are opened^^ in the light that shall make all things 
manifest, the Presiding Eldership of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church will be seen in its larger aspects, 
and in its mightiness in extending our borders, 
seizing and fortifying strategic points, holding them 
against the foe, and gathering around them and con- 
centrating in them, the forces of the highest and 
best type of Church life, exhibiting itself in the 
transformation of men, the regeneration of society, 
the elevation of business, and the right and per- 
manent adjustment of the complex relations and 
diverse interests of mankind to the true enlargement 
of the race, and the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 
5 



CHAPTER IV. 

FUNCTIONS AND EESPONSIBILITIES OF 
THE PEESIDING ELDEESHIP. 

The functions of the Presiding Elderskip orig- 
inate in its organic relationship, and inhere in its 
design. They are, therefore, of a high order. 

The functional duties of the office, in normal 
activity, are numerous, grave, and exceedingly im- 
portant. The responsibilities of the position are 
correspondingly great and weighty. 

These functions are judicial, executive, and ad- 
ministrative. 

1. The presiding elder is a judicial officer. He 
is a part of the judiciary of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. He presides in Quarterly and District 
Conferences when sitting as courts of trials or appeal, 
and also over committees of investigation in certain 
cases. It is incumbent on him as such, or upon the 
office through its occupant, to interpret the laws of 
the Church, and to decide all questions pertaining 

66 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 67 

thereunto arising in due course of proceedings in 
committees^ or Quarterly or District Conferences. 

The ojoinion of the presiding elder^ expressed 
verbally^ or in writing outside^ or in the interim of the 
sessions of a judicial body, as to the meaning and 
application of any constitutional or statutory pro- 
vision of the Discipline, or of the common law of 
the Church, does not partake of the nature of a 
judicial decision. It may be a correct interpreta- 
tion of the law which it assumes to explain, and as 
such entitled to great weight, but it does not rise to 
the dignity of judicial character, nor is it binding 
upon individuals concerned, or bodies sitting in any 
capacity exercising Disci]3linary prerogatives. It is 
a mere opinion, and should receive credit as such 
only, and in so far as the officer is laiown to be a 
man of analytical abilities, judicial acumen, impartial 
judgment, and unquestioned probity. While the 
opinion, coming from such a powerful source, may 
be a conclusive argumentum ad jnclichim^ andc may 
exert a controlling influence upon the executory acts 
of an administrator, or determine the judicial course 
or executive action of a Church Conference or Ec- 
clestiastioal Court, it derives its weight from the 



QS The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

standing of the author rather than from the judicial 
character of the deliverance. 

The presiding elder may render his decision 
regularly as to time^ place, and form, and is in duty 
bound to do so under certain conditions properly de- 
scribed by the Discipline and in usage, and his de- 
cision is of binding force until reversed by one having 
appellate jurisdiction; but the application of the law 
thus construed is with the Conference, or court, over 
which he presides by the authority vested in his 
office, but such application of the law must be within 
the meaning of the law as the presiding elder in- 
terprets it. 

The judicial decisions of the presiding elder are 
not final, although binding for the time being. They 
are subject to an appeal to the bishop having direct 
supervision by regular or special assignment of the 
bishops, but not in the interim of the sessions of an 
Annual Conference. 

His opinion, to have authority and judicial weight, 
must be rendered as president of the Conference, and 
presiding in due course of its proceedings. Other- 
wise it is simply an individual opinion without ju- 
dicial character. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 69 

2. The presiding elder is an executive oflBcer. 

Certain high executive prerogatives belong to the 
Presiding Eldership. It is true^ as previously set 
forth, that the application of the law is not with 
him, but with the judicial body over which he pre- 
sides; nevertheless, there are certain lines of action 
in which he must not only interpret the law in the 
exercise of his judicial powers, but execute it, and 
in these he exercises executive functions. Thus the 
Presiding Eldership blends, in high degree of con- 
sonancy, judicial and executive powers. 

The presiding elder is an executive oflScer with 
well-defined functions, and he must execute the laws 
of the Church as from time to time enacted by the 
General Conference, and interpreted by the supreme 
judiciary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
within the limitations fixed by the uninterrupted 
usages relative to the preachers and Churches imder 
his jurisdiction by the appointment of the bishops, 
and the causes committed to his care as a diocesan 
superintendent. 

He must preside in the district, and see that the 
laws of the Church are enforced, and that every part 
of the Discipline is observed by those over whom 
he has been appointed as one having authority. 



70 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

This means more than the presidency of a Quar- 
terly or District Conference^ or in official inquiries 
or judicial proceedings^ though this is much. The 
presiding in a district embraces more than merely 
conducting the public services in connection with 
quarterly visitations^ the calling together the Quar- 
terly Conference for the transaction of such business 
as may properly come before it, the hearing of reports^ 
and the use of parliamentary powers and the priv- 
ilege of deciding questions of order. It rises to the 
great dignity of a presidency involving continuous 
relationship^ obligation^ and supervision. Its au- 
thority extends throughout certain fixed territorial 
bounds^ and over all the traveling preachers^ preachers 
on trials superannuated and supernumerary min- 
isters, local preachers and exhorters, and over all the 
Churches, with their various officers and auxiliaries^ 
and takes official cognizance of all the temporal and 
spiritual interests of the charges within the bounds 
of his district. 

In the exercise of the prerogatives which belong 
to this presidency, it is the duty of the presiding 
elder to preside in the District Conference in the 
absence, of a bishop, and in the Quarterly Conferences, 
to appoint eligible preachers to preside in the latter; 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 71 

and he may exercise the appointing power in the 
absence of a bishop, but "usually does so, and should 
ordinarily, under the unwritten restrictions suggested 
by courtesy, dictated by wisdom, and embodied in 
custom, and must do so within the Disciplinary 
limitations which hold over the bishops. He may 
provide for emergencies arising in the ordinary 
course of ecclesiastical events, change preachers, and 
fill vacancies, but may not do what a bishop could 
not do. He is clothed with the same powers, but is 
under the same restrictions as a bishop. He issues 
licenses to preach and certificates of the renewal of 
licenses of local preachers and exhorters, under the 
direction of the Quarterly Conference, or in accord- 
ance with the action of a District Conference. 

The office of presiding elder is, therefore, one of 
great executive powers, and is invested with unusual 
dignity and honor, and, although subordinate, it is 
but "a little lower^^ than the Bishopric. 

3. Prom what has been said already it must ap- 
pear that, without doubt, the office of presiding elder 
imposes upon the man appointed thereto duties both 
many and of the gravest import. 

When the administration of the presiding elder 
is considered from this high point of view, and none 



72 The Presidi]S"g Eldership Structural. 

too high, with such important judicial and execu- 
tive functions, it is seen in its true light, and the 
glory thereof excelleth, and it may well be said, ^'^He 
that desireth the office of a presiding elder in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church desireth a good work;^^ 
even that of a bishop is no greater, although it is 
more desired. 

The presiding elder is an itinerant minister. He 
must travel throughout his district. He can not 
properly oversee the work from his studj^, nor while 
attending to secular affairs of his own. He can not 
stay at home and do his work. He must itinerate. 
The ^^go'^ of the Church is upon him^ and her business 
requires his time, and he must be in haste about it. 

He is an inspector, visiting the societies, classes, 
Sunday-schools, Epworth League Chapters, and all 
the working forces of modern Methodist Church life. 
Like St. Paul, a good pattern to follow, he goes and 
visits to see ^^how they do,^^ and ascertain whether the 
Churches are prospering, and whether all their or- 
ganized activities are working in harmony with our 
denominational system, and to know their state. His 
visitation is one of inspection. He holds Quarterly 
Meetings and Conferences, calls for, insists upon, 
and hears written reports from those in charge of the 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 73 

different departments of the work, submitted in ac- 
cordance with the requirements of the Discipline. 
He inquires into all conditions spiritual and financial. 
He does this carefully. He inspects the work. He 
needs and must have the instinct and penetration of 
a trained inspector. He is supposed to know, and 
not merely surmise, the state of the Churches. He 
must have knowledge; suppositions will not suffice. 
He must not take for granted, but diligently inquire 
into the situation, and make personal examination. 

The presiding elder is an official examiner. 

It is his duty to examine deeds and charters, etc., 
and to see that they conform to the laws of the State 
and are in harmony with the requirements and forms 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to see that 
our Church and parsonage property is insured. 

The presiding elder is an overseer. 

To him is committed the oversight of the preachers 
and the Churches in his district, and he must over- 
see the temporal and spiritual concerns of all the 
charges under his jurisdiction. This requires prompt 
recognition of claims, sensitiveness to responsibility, 
burning solicitousness, frequent visitation, breadth of 
vision, depth of penetration, searching investigation, 
the most powerful inquisitiveness, correctness of com- 



74 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

parisons^ and constant watchfulness^ which find suffi- 
cient cause in high endowment and special acquisi- 
tion, and find their highest manifestation in thorough- 
ness and efficiency of a supervision which gives satis- 
faction and brings things to pass. He oversees the 
work. 

The presiding elder is a promoter. 

He must plan with wisdom, statesmanship, genius, 
insight, courage, calmness, and determination, and 
travel like Paul and Asbury, with the zeal of Taylor, 
the self-denial of Livingstone, the heroism of Cart- 
wright, and the patience and persistence of Thoburn, 
and with the outlook of a modern prophet, with a 
view to promoting all the interests of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. He must promote the world- 
embracing causes of Missions, Church Extension, 
Education, Methodist literature, and Evangelization, 
for which the Church stands, and give her hold and 
heritage in home and foreign lands, and in distant 
time. He should be the chief promoter of his district, 
and, by precept, example, and urgency, endeavor to 
lead and direct the phalanx under his command with 
decisfveness of conquests, and in the construction of 
a spiritual empire. 

The presiding elder is a reporter. 



The Presidi2s'g Eldership Structural. 75 

It is his duty to report regularly to the bishop 
having immediate charge of his Conference^ and to 
the representative on the General Committees. He 
should keep the entire Church informed concerning 
his field, its nature^ extent^ difficulties^ and actual 
progress. This he can do through the regular channels 
the Church has wisely established for the dissemina- 
tion of denominational intelligence. He should make 
use of the Advocate chosen by his Conference as its 
official paper. This he should do with discriminating 
judgment in bringing before his people^ and the 
public generally^ such facts as tend to instruct the 
preachers and members and to inspire them with 
greater zeal and courage. 

In order to do this as he should^ he must be 
thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the work 
on his district. His reports must be accurate and 
comprehensive^ that those to whom he gives account 
may know as well as he. 

This I regard as one of the most important 
features of the work of a presiding elder. So much 
depends upon the knowledge he is supposd to supply. 
Bishops and representatives are often censured when 
the blame primarily attaches to a presiding elder 
for not furnishing adequate information. 



76 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

The presiding elder is an attendant of the bishop. 

The Discipline especially directs that he shall 
^^attend the bishop when present in his district/' 
not as a valet de chambre, but as an official subor- 
dinate in joint visitation and inspection of the 
Churches, sharing without robbery, respect with his 
superior in office, and likewise the labor and respon- 
sibility of the supervision. 

The presiding elder is a director. 

It appertaineth to his office to direct our young 
people to our institutions of learning, and particularly 
those who contemplate entering our ministry, to the 
necessity and advantages of a thorough training in 
our universities and theological seminaries; and 
preachers on trial to the Course of Study prescribed 
by the bishops in pursuance of the direction of the 
General Conference, and to such other reading as 
will serve to keep them abreast of the times and make 
them creditable ministers of the Church. 

He should also direct all the people under his 
care to our publications as the most suitable to in- 
struct them in the history, doctrines, polity, usages, 
plans, and expansion of Methodism, and in the mis- 
sionary triumphs of the gospel in all lands. 

But there are some important functions of the 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 77 

Presiding Eldership not especially designated by 
specific enactment^ constitutional or otherwise;, but 
embodied in general and uniform nsage^ and unchal- 
lenged throughout Episcopal Methodism. Custom be- 
comes law. Established and unquestioned usage is 
law. Unwritten law binds as inexorably as that which 
is written. 

Under this law the presiding elder possesses cer- 
tain functions^ and must perform certain duties which 
have been assigned to him by the laws of necessity 
and courtesy in combinative power. The presiding 
elder sits with the bishop when the plan of the district 
is being formed^ the boundaries of charges are being 
fixed^ and^ most important of all^ when the appoint- 
ments of the preachers are being made. A presiding 
elder may not claim this as a right specifically defined 
and conferred^ but it is more than a privilege cour- 
teously accorded, and has a deeper significance than 
can be claimed for mere custom. It is unwritten law^ 
having its origin in constitutional intent^, and enforced 
by the hand of necessity. It is firmly grounded in 
equities of the case^ and never can be rooted up so 
long as the appointing power rests with our bishops, 
and the supervision of the Church devolves upon the 
Bishopric and the Presiding Eldership. All talk 



78 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

In the ecomomy of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church this power is vested solely in the bishops 
severally^ each having co-ordinate authority co- 
extensive with the Church. But this power must be 
exercised under the Disciplinary restriction^ and is 
shared by the presiding elders under certain con- 
ditions. 

The presiding elder is appointed by the bishop, 
and may be removed at any time by him. 

The supervision is^ however, a joint supervision, 
in which the bishop and presiding elder share, the 
bishop being the superior, and the presiding elder 
the inferior officer, the latter bearing the responsibility 
which continuous residence in his district (and the 
presiding elder ought to reside in his district, as 
much so as a bishop should reside in the place to 
which the General Conference assigns him), more 
frequent visitation, correspondence with pastors and 
laymen, more direct touch with the Churches, and 
the more intimate knowledge of their conditions, 
impose. 

This is further enhanced by the fact that a bishop 
must rely very largely upon the presiding elder for 
information relative to preachers and Churches, and 
still further by the character and extent of his in- 



The Presidixg Eldership Structural. 79 

about making presiding elders the constitutional 
advisers of the bishops is out of place; and even an 
amendment to the Constitution^ or specific statutory 
provision to this effect^ would be a useless and cumber- 
some appendage. They are now such in practice, 
and no thoughtful and considerate presiding elder 
wants more power or gTeater responsibility than he 
has under the present order. 

He furnishes all necessary information to the 
bishop and his colleagues concerning the preachers, 
their families, and the Churches. He gives advice to 
the bishop, not as one having co-ordinate authority, 
nor even as one having specified constitutional rights 
in the premises, but as counselor by courtesy and the 
law of usage inhering in the nature of things cor- 
related in administration. 

The responsibility of the Presiding Eldership, 
arising out of its relations and measured by the char- 
acter, number, and bearing of its functions, and de- 
termined by the duties devolving upon the office, are 
very great. They weigh heavily upon the mind and 
heart of the conscientious, God-fearing, man-loving 
presiding elder. 

The responsibility of the presiding elder is, first 
of all, to the appointing power. 



80 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

fluence upon the scheme of the appointments, in 
whole and in particular. Who will question the 
statement that a very large per cent of the appoint- 
ments is made on the recommendations of the pre- 
siding elders? With the comparatively limited ac- 
quaintance of the bishop, and the shortness of the 
time which he may devote to any Annual Conference 
session, he is shut into this, and it requires no stretch 
of the imagination nor extra judicial construction 
of the law, crystallized in uniform and unvarying 
practice, to see that this was what was intended by 
the framers of our system of pastoral supply. The 
bishop must give account to the preachers and the 
Churches, and to the Church at large, and the presid- 
ing elder must answer to the bishop. 

In the next place, the presiding elder is responsible 
to the preachers and their families. 

He does not make the appointment ; but ordinarily 
the appointment is made on his recommendation, and 
his recommendation goes because he is the presiding 
elder, and is supposed to know the preachers and 
the conditions and needs of their families, and to seek 
to serve their interests in common with those of the 
Churches. While final authority and responsi- 
bility rest with the bishop, and he does not wish to 



The Peesidixg Eldership Structural. 81 

minify either^ especially the latter^ no presiding 
elder can shift that which primarily and permanently 
attaches to his relation and position. The preachers 
and their wives and children have a right to hold 
presiding elders responsible in a large measure for 
their appointments^ whether they be good or whether 
they be bad. 

In the third place, the presiding elder is respon- 
sible to the Churches. 

He is presumed to know their history, conditions, 
and environments, and their general and special needs 
and their wishes, and he is their mouthpiece to the 
bishop. 

Here and there a Church attempts to assume all 
the responsibility in the matter of suppljdng its pul- 
pit, and would relieve the presiding elder and even the 
bishop, and proceeds to ^^invite^^ — a Methodist sub- 
stitution for '^^cair^ — a preacher, and sometimes the 
presiding elder and the bishop leave them to their 
^^own sweet will,^* and usually, in such cases, witness 
the serious consequences of congregational tendencies 
and practices in Methodist Episcopal Churches. 
Nevertheless the law and the Church at large hold 
them responsible, and neither bishop nor presiding 

elder can exonerate himself from unjustifiable non- 
6 ^ ^ ^ -^ 



82 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

interference. It were better to let some Churches 
go than to allow the law broken with impunity, the 
system disrupted, and the authority and responsi- 
bility of the Episcopacy disregarded. The presiding 
elder is responsible to the Churches in his district, 
and he can not shirk it under the disguise of haying 
been ignored. 

It is the belief of the writer, based upon twenty- 
six years^ experience in the Presiding Eldership, and 
upon observations in the pastorate, and upon a general 
study of the question, that the Churches in Episcopal 
Methodism that leave the matter of pastoral supply 
with the bishop and presiding elder, without special 
pressure by ^^committee^^ or ^^petition,^^ the latter or- 
dinarily putting the preacher under suspicion, and 
have left them free to follow their godly judgment, 
and held them to their responsibility, have had the 
greatest prosperity in the true development of Church 
life, denominational power, and genuine spiritual 
results. 

Let presiding elders, therefore, answer to their 
Churches, and let the Churches require this of them 
as no unreasonable exaction. 

Again the presiding elder is responsible to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church as a whole. This holds 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 83 

in the matter of her conneetional interests separately 
and conjointly^ and in their relation to the mainte- 
nance of the Church on its historic basis^ in doctrinal 
integrity^ spirituality^ and simplicity of worship, 
orderly service, evangelistic freedom and fervor, sin- 
gleness of aim, circumambient outlook, missionary 
enthusiasm, abounding liberality, and power of 
achievement. He is expected to lead the Church, 
and to hold her steady in her movement toward the 
subjugation of the world to Jesus Christ, and the 
universal triumph of His kingdom, when the ^^shout 
of the isles shall swell the thunder of the continents^' 
in proclaiming Him King over all the earth and 
Lord of all. 

In view of their number, the importance of their 
position, their personal standing, and their oflficial 
influence, the Church rightfully and wisely looks to 
the presiding elders, and holds them accountable for 
her general prosperity, and they can not shun this, 
and but few of them would if they could. 

Finally the presiding elder is responsible to the 
great head of the Church. 

He has been called by the great Shepherd of the 
sheep, and commissioned by the Bishop of souls, and 
in the order of the Church, to this ministry and 



84 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

office, and to Him he must render his final account 
in the all-searching light of the judgment-day. Pre- 
siding elders are His watchmen. They stand on the 
watch-towers of Zion, and look out over the walls and 
on the fields where the battle is on, and the con- 
flict rages and deepens in intensity and gathering 
gloom, but their keen eyes see above and beyond 
the ^^smoke of the torment^^ the light of the coming 
day. ''All hail r they shout. 

They watch not only for their own ''little flock/^ 
but for the whole "flock of God.^' They "live not only 
to love their own Church/^ and this they do, "and 
to make her a power in the world, but to love every 
other Church that exalts the name of our Christ.^^ 

No man who is worthy to occupy the position 
of presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
is a bigot. He is not a sect-master nor a narrow 
sectist, though he is a denominational leader and a 
denominationalist. He is imbued with the spirit of 
true Christian fraternity, and his labors are charac- 
terized by genuine catholicity, and take on large as- 
pects. He recognizes the fact that the kingdom of 
God on earth embraces all who are united to Christ; 
that Christianity is larger than his Church, and more 
extensive than all the Churches ; that Christ has sheep 



The Presidij^g Eldership Structural. 85 

who are not of His fold^ nor of any man^s particular 
fold, and they must be fed, and He feedeth them. 
^^The love of Christ constraineth him/^ and to Him 
he must make his final report. He sings with Mon- 
sell: 

** Lord of the living harvest 

That whitens o'er the plain, 
Where angels soon shall gather 

Their sheaves of golden grain, 
Accept these hands to labor. 

These hearts to trust and love, 
And deign with them to hasten 

Thy kingdom from above/' 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE CLAIMS AND PEOPER EECOGmTION 
OE THE PEESIDING ELDEESHIP. 

The claims of the Presiding Eldership rest in its 
relations^ the character of its service^ and its effect- 
iveness in the number and importance of its results. 

Its claims are well founded in law, in fact, and 
in the fundamental principles which underlie our 
entire system of activities. 

The Presiding Eldership has claims upon the 
consideration and moral support of the bishops. 

One of the duties of a bishop is to appoint pre- 
siding elders, and he should give the matter careful 
and prayerful attention. It merits this. He makes 
no appointment of greater, or even equal import, 
and possible consequences. A due regard for the 
office, its elevation of rank, degree of excellence, and 
potential connections, should control him in selecting 
its incumbents. Men may be deserving of sympathy, 
and a bishop should be a man of large heart, of 

86 



The Presidixg Eldership Structural. 87 

genuine sjonpathetic feelings and a ^%ver of good 
men f but his consideration of the imperative claims 
of the Presiding Eldership should always govern him 
in his selections for^ and appointments to^ this office. 
Irreparable mischief will come to the Churchy last- 
ing reproach fall upon the office^ and ultimately on 
the Bishopric itself^, and a long series of misfortunes 
would follow^ if mere sympathy for a man^ though 
he be unfortunate and estimable, or favoritism con- 
trol the action of a bishop in appointing presiding 
elders. The office has prior claims which can not be 
set aside or ignored without compensating the act 
by the pajTuent of the heaviest penalties in the loss 
of power and depletion of ranks. 

And the office, particularly at this time in our 
Methodism, needs not only the exercise of the highest 
quality of discrimination in our bishops in determin- 
ing who shall fill it, but the moral support of the 
bishops expressed with unequivocalness. They should 
have more to say in its favor. It should have defi- 
nite and supporting statement in their quadrennial 
addresses, appreciative representation in their public 
utterances in Annual Conferences, favorable com- 
ment in their communications with laymen and min- 
isters^ and larger consideration in their administra- 



88 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

tion. It should be known throughout the Church that 
the Presiding Eldership has the unqualified sanction 
of the bishops^ and it should not suffer from any 
ambiguous remark of any bishop^ or inattention on 
his part. The oflBce has a right to all this from the 
bishops^ and they should not be indifferent to accord- 
ing it^ but prompt in the full recognition of its claims. 

The Presiding Eldership has claims upon the 
preachers. It is unquestionably entitled to their high 
respect^ and more. The relation it sustains to their 
appointment^ support^, and effectiveness is direct and 
influential. They should study it, and know its place 
and power in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
its functions in the practical administration of our 
economy. It should have their respectful and help- 
ful consideration. They can not well afford to be 
either ignorant or indifferent to its claims, much less 
to hold it in open or concealed disrespect. 

Preachers should give it their personal and of- 
ficial indorsement, and in every possible way 
strengthen it among ministers, laymen, and Churches. 
It ought to have a place in their thought, prayers, 
and plans, not only during Annual Conference ses- 
sions, but in the interim as well, and especially in con- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 89 

nection with all quarterly visitations, and it should 
have its full due in all that pertains to it in the 
ordinary routine of Church work. 

It is not a common thing among us for preachers 
entirely to ignore the Presiding Eldership^ and tram- 
ple it under foot by taking their appointment into 
their own hands. This rarely occurs, and when it 
does, the usual consequences of ingratitude, impa- 
tience, and self-assertion, in violation of solemn or- 
dination vows, follow to the discomfort of the ar- 
rogant. Most preachers hold the office in highest 
esteem, and count it worthy of all honor, and are 
pleased to acknowledge its claims in every place, 
and by so doing lose nothing themselves, but gain 
much in respect for their own office and ministry. 
Let our preachers, therefore, respect the office of pre- 
siding elder, and acknowledge its claims. 

The Presiding Eldership has claims upon the 
Churches of the connection. 

It sustains relations to them which are not fully 
understood by all, and not, therefore, fully ap- 
preciated. 

Ministerial supply and pastoral oversight are in- 
separably connected with this office and largely de- 



90 The Presiding Eldership Structural 

pendent upon it. It exists^ and is in operation, 
chiefly for their good. It is in constant and effectual 
touch with them in supervision. It brings to them 
directly the powers of a bishop. They must and do 
look to this oflBce, in the ordinary course of Church 
activities, for constancy of oversight, for counsel in 
time of need, and protection in the time of danger, 
and especially so when emergencies arise and their 
interests are imperiled. If the pastor secularizes, 
or imbibes and teaches heresies, or withdraws from the 
Church, or breaks down, or dies, in any emergency 
this office is applied to, and rightly so, and is prompt 
to respond and usually effective in affording relief. 
If a change of pastors is desired, the Presiding Elder- 
ship, in most cases, must bear the burden; it is the 
"go-between^^ of the Church and the pastor, and the 
channel through which the wishes of both are com- 
municated to the bishop that a suitable adjustment 
may be made. N'o Methodist Episcopal Church 
ought to disregard the claim of the Presiding 
Eldership. 

This office has claims upon the benevolent causes, 
connectional interests, and institutions of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 91 

It has been one of the great factors in establish- 
ing these on their present basis of authority^ power, 
and "usefulness, in the settled policy of the Church, 
in their unification and harmonious and co-operative 
administration, and in bringing them to commanding 
position among Methodists throughout all our bor- 
ders, and its influence upon their prosperity can not 
be measured. 

Destroy this oflfice in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and you will take out the most important 
link between the general enterprises of the Church 
and our people, and to the extent it is modified in 
character or in influence they will be paralyzed. 

It is my judgment that no other ofiicer in the wide 
range of our general officiary stands in more im- 
portant relations and exerts a greater power in cre- 
ating sentiment in favor of our organizations, mis- 
sionary and benevolent, in holding the preachers in 
loyal devotion thereto, in raising the standard of 
collections, and in leading the Churches to meet 
their equitable apportionments. What other office 
is on the field, moving among the preachers and the 
Churches, and associating with the leading laymen 
of Methodism, and accomplishing more for missions, 



93 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Church extension, education, Methodist literature 
and institutions? I know of none. Hence the 
claims of this oflBce. 

Finally, these claims hold upon the entire Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 

In reckoning up in order the forces which have had 
to do with the statement and defense of her doctrines, 
the maintenance of her polity, the execution of her 
laws, the administration of her temporal and spiritual 
affairs, the fires of her altars, accessions to her ranks, 
the edification of her constituency, the magnificent 
offerings of her people, her influence upon other 
Churches, her power upon the national life, her stand- 
ing in history, her place in the civilization of the 
new century, and in making her famed and loved in 
^^climes that burn with fierce or freeze with distant 
suns,^^ and sending her as a girdle of light around 
the globe, the Presiding Eldership must have a large 
measure of credit. It has been one of the most active 
agencies in the growth of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in all that goes to make her what she is 
to-day — one of the greatest, if not the greatest evan- 
gelical forces of modern time. 

And before any man rises to call in question the 
above statement of the claims of the Presiding El- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 93 

dership^ let him study the office in its permanent 
attachments and interesting ramifications in the mar- 
velous history of the Churchy and know whereof he 
affirms. 

It follows^ therefore, as a logical sequence, that 
the Presiding Eldership is justly entitled to the full- 
est recognition. 

In view of the complex relations, importance, re- 
sponsibilities, and influence of the office, it does not 
receive the kind and degree of recognition it merits 
and should have. 

The office has suJffered, and its power for good 
has been partially destroyed, by withholding from 
it the recognition due it, and many a presiding el- 
der has been made ^^sick at heart^^ by this kind of 
discourtesy. Preachers, Churches, and bishops are 
debtors to the Presiding Eldership, and should not, 
either through thoughtlessness, or studied indifference, 
or selfishness, or because of superiority of rank, fail, 
much less refuse, its meed of praise, as in part its 
recompense of reward for its long years of service and 
increasing usefulness. 

Such recognition and commendation would not 
detract from any preacher, nor disparage any Church, 
nor lessen the authority or dignity of any bishop. 



94 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

but rather exalt them, and add to their name and 
fame. The law of Christ holds in this, as in other 
matters, ^^With what measure ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you again/^ The man who detracts from 
another's position, detracts from his own. To the 
extent we break down the official standing of some 
one else, we become instruments in the overthrow 
of our own. If we destroy others, we shall ourselves 
be destroyed. This is true of positions. Authority 
is sensitive, and men are quick to recognize its de- 
cline. 

Some Methodist Episcopal preachers who have 
tried to ignore the Presiding Eldership would not 
have the standing they have now, and might be with- 
out a charge or out of the ministry, but for this 
office, and possibly ought to be. No Church had 
asked for them, and would not ; the Conference would 
not have continued them ; the bishop would not have 
appointed them willingly, and they would have been 
forced to ^^discontinue,'' or "locate," or ask for a "su- 
pernumerary relation." The presiding elder saved 
him "for better or worse." But for the Presiding El- 
dership, with all the power with which the bishops 
are clothed, the Methodist Episcopal Church would 
probably be the equal of any other in the number of 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 95 

pastorless Churches ; congregations would be listening 
to ^^trial sermons/^ many preachers would be saying, 
^^H^o man hath hired us/^ and our bishops would be 
caught in the meshes of confusion and give up in 
despair^ and our itinerancy would go to pieces like a 
^"^rope of sand/^ 

Preachers and Churches should^ therefore^ recog- 
nize the Presiding Eldership^ and a bishop should be, 
and usually is^ the last man in Episcopal Methodism 
to show indifference to the office^ and to treat with in- 
tentional discourtesy ^'^one of the least^^ of its incum- 
bents ; for under our system of joint General and Dioc- 
esan Superintendency he is so largely indebted to the 
office for that information which enables him to per- 
form with intelligence and satisfaction the duties of 
his office^ and to exercise the appointing power the 
Church has lodged in him in a manner that will tend 
to perpetuate the Bishopric in the esteem and affec- 
tion of all Episcopal Methodists. 

It is amusing^ if not provoking^ to see some 
brethren who would be as one ^^seeking rest and find- 
ing none^^ but for the presiding elder and his fervent 
and effectual plea^ assume an attitude of superiority 
and cold indifference to the office^, and to hear them 
speak contemptuously of the men^ as a class, who 



96 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

hold the office^ not of their own seeking nor of choice, 
but as obedient servants of the Church, ^%llowing 
with a glad mind and will/^ and ^'reverently obeying 
their chief ministers/^ 

And occasionally a Church which has been saved 
from prolonged vacancy, or from the continuance of 
a weak and unsuccessful man in its pulpit, or from 
bankruptcy, by the exercise of the good judgment 
and authority properly belonging to the Presiding 
Eldership, and the prompt action of a presiding elder, 
puts on airs, takes itself out of the hands of the office, 
and passes by the occupant, not recognizing either, 
and has the reward of its own folly. 

The Presiding Eldership should have proper rec- 
ognition. By every law of character and service it 
is entitled to distinction and honor. Let bishops, pas- 
tors. General Conference officers, representatives of 
our denominational interests and institutions, and our 
laymen throughout the connection render unto the 
Presiding Eldership that which is due, and to the 
presiding elder the respect to which his position en- 
titles him. 

It may be that some of us presiding elders may 
not adorn and magnify the office as we should, and 
have failed, through lack of energy, adaptation, study, 



'The Presiding Eldership Structural. 97 

perseverance^ and effectual working of every part^ to 
justify the wisdom of our appointment, and can not, 
therefore, command that degree of respect which is 
necessaiy to a successful administration; but, if so, 
the blame does not attach to the office ; it can not be, 
by any logical construction, held responsible. The 
bishop who appoints such a man, the man himself, and 
the bishop who reappoints him, must answer at the 
bar of the Church for any hurt or hindrance ; but the 
office should not be deprived of recognition in conse- 
quence. 

In cases of such incompetency the strong hand of 
a bishop should interpose, and he that cumbereth the 
office should be removed, not with rude arbitrariness, 
but in ^^decency and in order,^^ with honor for all 
men; for any Methodist minister whose record for 
efficiency or standing among his brethren puts him 
in the list of suitable persons for the office, and who 
has been counted ^Vorthy of double honor"^ by being 
appointed to the office by any bishop, is entitled to 
consideration even in the manner of his retirement, 
unless he be guilty of some crime, or there be some 
serious imprudence requiring summary action without 
the ordinary graces of courtesy and forbearance. 

Natural impediments made manifest by, and dis- 
7 



98 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

covered after, appointment to the office, while suflfi- 
cient to warrant non-continuance in the position, and 
positively requiring it in the interest of the Church, 
should not subject the unfortunate man to the severer 
processes of removal; and no bishop has a more deli- 
cate task than to effect it without offense ; he must do 
it if he would save the Church from disaster, but he 
must do it with good will, kindness, and frankness. 

The office of bishop is one of great dignity, and 
bishops deserve to be preferred in honor before oth- 
ers, and they are not all insensible to the withhold- 
ing of their due in this respect, though they may not 
take serious umbrage. The writer will scarcely be 
accused of dereliction in this matter, and but few min- 
isters, or even laymen, fall short of their duty in ren- 
dering unto the bishops the respect due them, while 
some are overzealous in complimenting a bishop whom 
they would probably ignore if he were a presiding el- 
der only. We would not lessen, but rather increase, 
the esteem of our people for our bishops, but we plead 
for the proper recognition of the Presiding Eldership. 

Pastors are worthy of honor, and expect to be es- 
teemed for ^^their work^s sake,^^ and I accord to them, 
without grudge or jealousy, and most cheerfully, that 
which they deserve; all honor to the faithful pastor; 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 99 

but still I plead for the ^^proper recognition of the 
Presiding Eldership/^ 

The Presiding Eldership is an office of honorable 
distinction in the Methodist Episcopal Churchy and 
the man who fills the position is usnally a man of like 
passions as the bishops and pastors^ and feels as keenly 
as they any slight^ intentional or otherwise, and can 
as highly appreciate and enjoy the personal and offi- 
cial courtesies which belong to his position, and, if a 
man of large intelligence, good tastes, and a reason- 
able degree of common sense, and withal a godly man, 
he will not become morose on account of neglect or 
discourtesy or abuse ; neither will he be puffed up by 
words of commendation fitly spoken by men in in- 
ferior positions, or by men in the superior office. 

I ask for the just consideration of the office of pre- 
siding elder, and for its full recognition by the min- 
istry and membership of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and by those in highest authority among us. 

The Presiding Eldership has claims, and should 
have recognition. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PEESEI^T-DAY NEEDS OF THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHUECH IN EELATION TO 
THE PEESIDING ELDEESHIP. 

In view of well-known conditions in some parts 
of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy many opinions 
are being formed and expressed with greater or less 
emphasis, in private conversation among ministers 
and members, in preachers^ meetings and associations 
of laymen, in the secular, general religious, independ- 
ent Methodist, and oflScial Church press, as to present- 
day needs of our Church. 

These are manifold and diverse. They emanate 
from sources which entitle them to respectful atten- 
tion. Some of these are wise, and not only worthy 
of careful consideration, but to be enacted into law; 
and some have sufficient warrant in fact and hold 
upon the popular thought of the Church to justify 
the belief that they will, sooner or later, receive offi- 
cial cognizance, and take form in legislative action, 

100 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 101 

and become part of the permanent policy of the 
Church. 

Many of these opinions relate to the Presiding 
Eldership^ directly and indirectly. 

That there are needs of the Chnrch relative to the 
Presiding Eldership the observer of current tenden- 
cies and discussions will not doubt. The writer 
neither challenges this postulate^ nor seeks to mini- 
mize the importance of such needs^ nor yet to modify 
the insistence of those who urge them. The only 
point of disagreement is as to what these needs 
really are. I concede both the existence of needs and 
their pressing character. 

What^ therefore^ are the present-day needs of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in relation to the Pre- 
siding Eldership? 

1. There is great need of fuller and more accu- 
rate information concerning the office of presiding 
elder;, its place^ work^ and influence in Episcopal 
Methodism. 

Much of the discussion of this subject in its various 
aspects has been misleading and confusing. Much 
of that which has been published^ even in our own 
papers, has been derogatpry. Many influences have 
been brought to bear upon ministers and laymen with 



102 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

a view to degrading the ofiSce^ and bringing the posi- 
tion into common reproach^ thus preparing the way 
for its abolition. Non-episcopal and congregational 
tendencies in our Church have combined in advo- 
cacy of measures which are expected to ultimate in the 
effectual elimination of this office from our system 
of Church government. Lack of the right kind of 
knowledge is at the bottom of much of this. Misin- 
formation has wrought its mischief in grossly-per- 
verted notions^ and, as a result, the office stands in an 
unenviable light before many people. There is a 
deeply-rooted prejudice and strong opposition against 
the office. Enough has not been said in its favor. But 
few have come to its defense. Positively injurious 
statements have been allowed to go unchallenged. 
Our Methodists have not been correctly informed as 
to its nature and beneficial work. Presiding elders 
themselves have suffered under the false accusations 
which have been hurled against their position in the 
Church, and have kept silent, hoping that others 
would speak forth words of truth and soberness in 
their behalf. There has been unpardonable care- 
lessness at this point. Ignorance — I can call it noth- 
ing else — concerning the office, its relations, powers, 
responsibilities, great usefulness, and necessity, in 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 103 

working our plan of general supervision^ is wide- 
spread^ deplorable^, and alarming. Our people^ and 
some of our preachers^ need instruction in these mat- 
ters^ and must have it^, or darkness will grow darker 
stilly and clamor for a change will become more and 
more insistent^ and^ failing to produce what it seeks. 
will assert itself in continuous and hurtful agitation ; 
suitable men will most respectfully decline the 
honors of the office^ weak men will^ of necessity^ be 
ajDpointed thereto^ the presiding elder will become 
a term of reproach^ our bishops will be put to shame^ 
our itinerancy will become a byword^ and Episcopal 
Methodism will take her place among the wreckage 
along the coasts of time^, or the disturbance will find 
consummation in schism and revolt. 

Methodists are open to instruction. They are in 
a state of receptivity. They are teachable. They 
want knowledge. They look for books and for articles 
in our Church papers on Methodist Episcopal 
Church polity^ as well as on doctrines of life and des- 
tiny and on the current questions of our day^ and to 
their ministry for instruction in all things pertain- 
ing to Church government. If they are ignorant in 
these things^ it is the fault of those whose business it 
is to inform them. They would be intelligent and 



104 The Presidii^g Eldership Structural. 

loj^al members of the Church. Their loyalty will 
never exceed their intelligence. As they come to 
understand these things^ they come into larger ap- 
preciation of them^ and to their loyal, hearty, and 
liberal support. Lack of knowledge relative to the 
Presiding Eldership is the fruitful source of much 
mischievousness in our Church at this time. Inform 
the people as to what the office is ; what its relations 
are to the appointing power, to the proper adjustment 
of preachers to the Churches; what its duties are in 
the matter of district supervision and in the ^^care of 
all the Churches ;^^ its power and utility in main- 
taining our doctrines, enforcing discipline, lifting up 
the standards of religious experience. Christian life, 
ministerial qualifications, and pastoral supervision, 
and in all the larger activities of our Methodism, 
which "follows the sun in his triumphant journey 
around the globe.^^ 

Indifference to the Presiding Eldership will dis- 
appear with the disappearance of ignorance concern- 
ing it. Belief in and loyal support of it will come 
with enlightenment, and the office will stand out 
in its rightful position, clothed with recognized au- 
thority, receiving official courtesies, and adding power 
to Methodism and luster to her fame. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 105 

2. The Methodist Episcopal Church needs to be 
brought into closer practical relations to the Presid- 
ing Eldership^ and into closer touch ^dth the officer. 

The organic relations of the office are fixed in the 
settled policy of the Churchy and will probably re- 
main as they are; but I speak of the practical rela- 
tions involved in direct supervision. 

The office, sharing with the Bishopric in episcopal 
authority^ has gathered about itself a reserve^ and in 
some instances^ it must be confessed^ an austereness 
which have made it seem remote from the people^ and 
tended to disassociate it from the pastorate^ and 
quarterly visitations have assumed such an air of 
officialism, or red-tapeism, and have been reduced to 
such brevity ;, and confined to the perfunctory per- 
formance of the most ordinary business routine, that 
even the most faithful officials, the old ^^stand-bys^^ 
who are never absent, feel that between them and the 
office there is ^^sl great gulf fixed,^^ while the unoffi- 
cial members know but little about the office in it:- 
practical operations, and care less about the officer, 
and have no interest in his coming, and "can not tell 
whence he cometh nor whither he goeth.^^ 

It is no wonder that, under such circumstances, it 



106 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

seems far away^ an unnecessary appendage, and an 
expensive luxury. 

The office is not to blame for this condition of 
affairs. Some weak man has been thrust into it, 
and is filled with self -consciousness rather than with 
a sense of his responsibility and insufficiency, and 
thinks more of dignity than of service, and loves eclat 
better than unostentatious approval. He has con- 
tracted that disease known as ^^the swelling of the 
head,^^ for which there is no cure, or he was ^l^orn 
tired,^^ and has never recovered from it, or fallen a 
victim to that awful fatality ^^laziness,^^ and wishes 
to lounge between services, or hibernate in the in- 
terim of Quarterly Conferences, and is, consequently, 
an ^^unknown quantity .^^ 

The office is designed primarily to come into close 
touch and communication with the people, with pas- 
tors and laymen, and every department of the work, 
and all the workers, and the conditions under which 
they toil in the ^^King^s business.^^ 

The Church needs to have this office brought into 
the closest relations to all the charges, societies, and 
auxiliaries of our Church, in these days of improved 
organization and methods, to its officers and the com- 



The Presiding Eldeeship Structural. 107 

mittees of the Quarterly Conference^ and to have 
the benefit of its more direct and helpful inspection, 
counsel, and influence, based upon a thorough, ana- 
lytical study and inside knowledge of the correlated 
forces, clerical and lay, and of the temporal and spir- 
itual interests. And it rests with the man in the of- 
fice to put it in such relations; and to do this he 
must put his personality into it with all the re-en- 
forcement of the highest intellectual attainments, ex- 
perimental knowledge, judgment of men, breadth of 
sjnnpathy, power of discernment, ^"^firmness for the 
right as God gives him to see the right,^^ grace of 
personal manner, gentleness in the exercise of author- 
ity, patience in trial, diligence in business, with at- 
tention to details and mastery of aggregations; he 
must be a man of the people, among the people, and 
for the people, bringing his oflBce into the most serv- 
iceable relations to them, and making it a power felt 
in a diversified administration in directing all inter- 
ests, and building up the Churches in all the elements 
of permanency, prestige, and enduring usefulness. 

Let the Presiding Eldership and the presiding el- 
der be brought thus into relations to the Churches, 
and we shall have done with adverse criticisms, and 



108 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

both will stand secure in the thought and affection 
of our ministers and members, with very few ex- 
ceptions. 

3. The Methodist Episcopal Church needs the 
more thorough and scrutinizing supervision of the 
Presiding Eldership. 

The Presiding Eldership is a supervisory office. 
The presiding elder is a supervisor of Church in- 
terests, but does not always discharge his duties as 
such up to the full measure of his obligation and op- 
portunity. Speaking from observation and experi- 
ence, I must say that the supervision generally exer- 
cised by the Presiding Eldership has not been char- 
acterized by that thoroughness of investigation and 
scrutiny which should distinguish the office. There 
has been either a want of apprehension on the part 
of the presiding elder as to some of the most important 
duties of his office, or an unwarranted assumption on 
his part that the discharge of such duties was un- 
necessary, or he has been deterred by fear that the 
performance of such would give offense, and cause 
some to accuse him of being a ^^meddler in other men^s 
matters,^^ or an inexcusable timidity has hindered 
him, and conditions have not been carefully inquired 
into ; the work of the different Boards has not been 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 109 

examined, and officers have not been held to a strict 
account of their stewardship. The heads of the va- 
rious departments, and men holding important offi- 
cial positions, and the standing committees, have not 
been required to be present at the Quarterly Confer- 
ence; their absence has been passed over as a thing 
of no consequence, and ^^no reports'^ is the order with- 
out serious protest, and the requirements of the Dis- 
cipline in this respect are trampled under foot; pre- 
scribed forms are ignored with impunity, and ^^mis- 
cellaneous items,^^ such as would be of interest to a 
man who earnestly desires to be familiar with the af- 
fairs of the Churches under his jurisdiction, are very 
meager, and then only verbally given. The Disci- 
plinary questions have been asked, to be sure, but in 
a formal manner, hurriedly, and without accentuation 
or evident expectation of answers in full and in detail. 
The oft-repeated words, ^"^no report,^^ are heard with 
apparent unconcern, or the most superficial verbal 
statement is passively accepted ; the answer, ^^in part,^^ 
goes without arousing any interest or inquiry; the 
regular ^^minute business^^ is rushed through perfunc- 
torily, and the session of the Quarterly Conference 
passes into history — often into oblivion — as the merest 
incident. Under such a humdrum administration 



110 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

the presiding elder knows but little more about the 
affairs of the charge than he knew before the session 
began. He does not seem anxious to know. He takes 
^^for granted^^ things are ^'^in order^^ and prosperous. 
The pastor and ofHeial members soon come to share 
the same spirit^ and manifest the same indifference 
to the Quarterly Conference^ and look upon it as a 
sort of quarterly afHiction^ and tolerate it because 
they think they ^^have to/^ and the official visitor as a 
thing to be borne with^ with as little protest as possi- 
ble^ for the reason they think they can not get rid 
of him; and^ as for the members generally, they 
scarcely know that ^^there be^^ any Quarterly Confer- 
ence, or that the presiding elder has made an official 
visit to their charge. 

The office of presiding elder is set in the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in order to secure effective 
oversight, and the Church will lapse into dilatoriness 
and lethargy, and fall into dilapidation, in proportion 
as supervision becomes perfunctory, lacking in thor- 
oughness, and wanting in discriminative inquiry. 

The quarterly visitation of the presiding elder 
should be marked by a conscientious fidelity to every 
duty and interest, and should inspire all workers 
with greater courage and enthusiasm, and give a new 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. Ill 

impetus to every form of local Church life and ac- 
tivity, and these things can not be accomplished with- 
out ^^going into the business*^ with a business instinct, 
with a hand that can open, an eye that can see, a 
spirit that can discern, an ear that can hear and under- 
stand, a power that is felt rather than asserted, and 
^^sets the house in order/^ The Discipline directs 
that ^^it shall be the duty of the presiding elder 
to inquire,^^ ^% ascertain,^^ and ^% see/^ These di- 
rections are mandatory, and the Church needs that he 
^'keep our rules'^ and ^^not mend them,^^ ^^not for 
wrath, but for conscience^ sake,^^ and that he obey 
her orders with a "^^glad mind and will/^ 

4. The Methodist Episcopal Church needs the 
larger services of the Presiding Eldership. 

In the earlier history of our Church the service 
rendered by the presiding elders was of the great- 
est importance in extending our borders, conduct- 
ing revivals, organizing societies, acquiring church 
property, building church edifices, and encouraging 
all kinds of denominational work. 

The need of such a diversified service may not 
be as great to-day in some parts of our world-wide 
territory as formerly, and in some quarters there is 
a feeling that the Church might dispense with this 



113 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

oflSee, not only without serious detriment, but with 
economy and great gain in other respects. This comes 
from a superficial view of the office, and from a lim- 
ited knowledge of general conditions in our Church. 

The services of the presiding elder are needed 
in the pulpits of the Churches of his district, and, as 
a preacher '^set for the defense of the gospeV^ he 
should be strong and acceptable. He should be a 
great preacher, and should lead in the needed revival 
of preaching. He should be able to warn men against 
sin and to win them to Christ. He should be able, by 
knowledge, skill, eloquence, and conclusiveness, to 
^^banish and drive away all erroneous and strange 
doctrines contrary to God^s Word,^^ and to establish 
our people in the ^^doctrines of the Holy Scriptures 
as set forth in the Articles of Keligion,^^ and to ^^f eed 
the flock of God.^' 

His conduct in the pulpit should be an example of 
conformity to our order of worship as laid down 
in the Discipline, and in harmony with good taste. 
He should conduct the public services ^^decently and 
in order,^^ inspire reverence, and promote the spirit 
of true worship. He should administer the sacraments 
and especially the Holy Communion, with becoming 
dignity, solemnity, and impressiveness, using the full 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 113 

ritual, with that fullness of expression, distinctness 
of enunciation, and unction necessary to make it 
pleasing, luminous, instructive, and inspiring, and to 
enlist the people in the performance of their part in 
the holy service. 

The presiding elder^s services^ are needed on the 
platform to plead the cause of missions, urge the 
claims of Church extension, stress the importance 
of Christian education, promote the circulation of 
our Church literature, arouse the Churches to a proper 
care of the children, to the better support of minis- 
ters, and to increased liberality and effort in advanc- 
ing all the interests of the Church. He is needed on 
popular educational and patriotic occasions, when he 
should quit himself like a man, reflect honor upon 
the Church as her representative, and show himself 
a citizen worthy the confidence reposed in him, and 
expressed by according to him such distinction, not 
simply as an individual, but mainly because he is 
what he is in the Methodist Episcopal Church, her 
chief representative in the community. 

His services are needed in the class-meetings, in 
the Sunday-schools, in the Epworth Leagues, that, 
both by precept and example, he may render the 
largest possible service. 
8 



114 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

The Church needs the larger service of the Pre- 
siding Eldership in support^ counsel^ and co-opera- 
tion with the pastors in enforcing discipline and 
the obligations of Church membership^ in commit- 
tees, and in the homes of the people, especially the 
^^shnt-ins^^ and those who are in ^^distress of body, 
mind, or estate/^ 

The Methodist Episcopal Church is in need of this 
larger service of the Presiding Eldership, and the 
incumbents of the office ought to be, and we believe 
they are, capable of rendering it. 

Finally, the Methodist Episcopal Church needs 
to have these needs supplied in the larger service and 
greater appreciation of the office of presiding elder. 

Let these needs be met, and we shall hear no 
more of the severe strictures of the office, or of the 
man that doeth these things; both will be popular, 
and acknowledged to be indispensable. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

SOME PEOPOSED CHANGES IN THE PEE- 
SIDING ELDEESHIP. 

The need of improvement in the Presiding Elder- 
ship by increasing its eflBciency is felt throughout 
the larger part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and acknowledged by the bishops and by some pre- 
siding elders^ and is, to the latter, one of their chief 
embarrassments. 

Unquestionably something ought to be done, and 
that without delay. The matter is of sufficient im- 
portant to the Church to warrant prompt and effect- 
ive measures of relief. 

Various opinions exist, and manifold suggestions 
have been made as to the best remedy for the pres- 
ent alleged distress. 

The situation is indeed serious enough, and I have 
no desire to pass it by indifferently, nor would I wave 

115 



116 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

aside the claims of those who urge some sort of im- 
provement. I would meet the existing state of things 
in relation to the office frankly, confessing the just- 
ness of the demands made upon it, and the reason- 
ableness of some of the complaints lodged against 
its administration after the manner of some. 

Let us, therefore, with calmness, ingenuousness, 
and exactness, look into and, if possible, make trans- 
parent some of the proposed remedies, and see if they 
afford even a promise of betterment; whether or not 
they would entail more of disadvantage than of ad- 
vantage. We can not afford to trifle with these 
questions. Improvement, and not experiment, is what 
the Church wants; gain, without loss, is the impera- 
tive need of the hour. We do not need medicine as 
much as we need exercise. We have no need to com- 
plicate further, but to work our machinery up to the 
full limit of its capacity. We need more hard, earnest, 
and persistent work, and less meddling with our sys- 
tem; we should add to its strength rather than 
weaken it. 

But candor compels us to admit that all who pro- 
pose plans of improvement seek a common end, — ^the 
welfare of the Church, in the least friction of her 
parts, in the greatest combinative strength of her 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 117 

elements^ and in the widest reach of her influence 
and sweep of her conquests. 

Let us look at some of the propositions^ made in 
all seriousness^ and to be examined in candidness and 
with profound respect for the proponents. 

The cause of the pressure for change is not to be 
found in our organism^ but in conditions ; the trouble 
is not organic^ and organic treatment is not necessary, 
and would hasten dissolution rather than con- 
valescence. 

1. It is proposed to make the Presiding Eldership 
more effective and popular by elevating the office, 
making it co-ordinate with the Bishopric. 

It is insisted that if the Diocesan Superintendency 
were made equal in authority with the General Su- 
perintendency, and the presiding elder invested with 
the same authority as the bishop in arranging the 
plan of the work and in making the appointments of 
the preachers, without the limitations at present im- 
posed, it would add to the efficiency of the office and 
augment the power of our system of supervision. 

Of all the propositions brought forward so far, 
this seems the least reasonable ; indeed, it is the most 
irrational. Does it propose radical changes ? It cer- 
tainly does involve serious complications, which would 



118 The Peesidin-q Eldership Structural. 

confuse rather than simplify the administration, and 
prove most harmful to our Church. 

There are but few presiding elders who covet this 
presumably superior investment, though some might 
^^desire the office of a bishop.^^ 

We would not destroy our Episcopacy in a vain 
endeavor to magnify the Presiding Eldership. Let 
the Episcopacy stand in its present comprehensive 
form, and let the bishops continue to exercise author- 
ity supreme within constitutionally prescribed restric- 
tions, and let them be held, as now, responsible to the 
Church for their great and unique power. 

The co-ordinateness of presiding elders and bishops 
would prove subversive of episcopal authority, would 
dissipate the power of the bishops, overthrow the 
structural relations of the Presiding Eldership, and 
involve our entire plan of supervision in endless con- 
fusion. 

We believe in concentration rather than dissi- 
pation of authority. We prefer to have the appoint- 
ing power lodged, as now, in the hands of fifteen 
picked men from the highest ranks of our ministry, 
to having it scattered among the hundreds of pre- 
siding elders, though they be men well chosen and 



The Peesidixg Eldership Structural. 119 

fulfilling their mission with credit to themselves and 
honor to the Church. 

2. It is proposed by some to make the presiding 
elders the constitiitional advisers of the bishops when 
the appointments are under consideration. 

Under our system of supervision a bishop without 
continuity of administration for a term of years, and 
yet not without full episcopal authority in any part 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, needs, and seeks, 
the advice of presiding elders, and they should be 
sufficiently informed and promptly responsive to give 
it with completeness of detail ; but such advice should 
not carry with it the weight of authority, but only 
that which the standing of the presiding elder for 
good judgment, thorough familiarity with pastors and 
Churches, and impartiality, gives it when weighed 
in the balance of a consensus of opinion. 

The final responsibility is with the bishop, and the 
authority should be his, to be exercised in the light 
he may gather from all sources. Without the latter, 
the former would be an unjust exaction. No bishop 
should be held responsible for an appointment unless 
he possesses full authority in making it. He must 
have unrestricted power if he must bear full respon- 
sibility. 



120 The Pkesiding Eldership Structural. 

The writer is of the opinion that no intelligent 
presiding elder really desires greater responsibility 
than that which present relations and power impose, 
and others ought not to have it imposed upon them. 
For one, I would not have my advice to a bishop 
invested even with a semblance of authority. I prefer 
to leave him free in the exercise of his godly judg- 
ment, and would not put him under the slightest offi- 
cial necessity of following the unanimous counsel of 
the presiding elders of an Annual Conference, much 
less my own; and I would not give the presiding el- 
ders, though of one mind, the power to veto any plan 
or appointment of a bishop. In this I find freedom 
for myself as well as for a bishop. As a presiding 
elder I have, under the present arrangement, all the 
responsibility I want and all the authority I desire. 
I can not have more of the latter without assuming 
more of the former, and I would not, therefore, in» 
voke more of either. 

In this I think I voice the sentiment of the great 
majority of our presiding elders. 

3. Again, we are told, and with much assurance, 
that the making of the Presiding Eldership an elect- 
ive office, and providing for the election of presiding 
elders by an Annual Conference for a term of years, 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 121 

with or without nomination by a bishop, would make 
the office more effective and acceptable. 

This is no new proposition. It is old enough to 
entitle it to superannuation; but it persists, and puts 
forth its hand to vex the Church. It continues with 
us with greater or less urgency, and is the catholicon 
invariably prescribed by certain of our ecclesiastical 
doctors for our Church diseases as they diagnosticate 
them. We challenge the correctness of their diag- 
nosis and repudiate the panacea they offer. The prop- 
osition can not be considered other than extremely 
radical, and fraught with the greatest dangers to our 
ministry and laity. It would give rise to, and pro- 
mote, friction, that would issue in the subversion of 
our ecclesiastical polity and the breaking up of our 
Church into fragments. 

The election of presiding elders is open to a num- 
ber of serious objections. 

It may not be considered by some as an infringe- 
ment upon our Constitution; but the fact remains, 
and should have force in this connection, that it tends 
to ^^destroy our Episcopacy .^^ Those who favor, as 
well as those who oppose, know well the logical se- 
quence of the proposition. Beyond all reasonable 
question, it would restrict the powers of the bishops, 



122 The pREsiDiiNTG Eldership Structural. 

which have their origin in the Constitution, are clearly 
defined in legislation, and definitely prescribed by 
the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

The election of presiding elders by an Annual Con- 
ference, which is in the nature of nominations only, 
would be a farce in which but few would care to en- 
gage. All self-respecting men would resent such a 
pretense. Men of intelligence can not be caught with 
disguises of this sort. 

On the other hand, the naming of men by the 
bishop to be voted upon by the Conference for the 
ofiice of presiding elder would be playing the part 
of freedom in the spirit of autocracy. No bishop who 
has a high sense of honor and justice, and cherishes a 
true regard for the dignity of man, would find pleas- 
ure in thus mocking his brethren, and men counted 
worthy of being ministers of the gospel and ambas- 
sadors of the Lord Jesus Christ would not long 
willingly tolerate such a sham. They would turn 
from it in indignation as an offensive sop, as an out- 
rage upon their intelligence, and despise the power 
that dominated the exercise of supposed suffrage, and 
overthrow the system of which it was a part. Either 
one of the above propositions means to make the office 
partly elective and partly appointive, a conglomera- 



The Presidi^^g Eldership Structural. 123 

tion involving all the elements of imperialism under 
the false name of democracy. If it is to be elective, 
make it elective; if it is to be appointive, let it be 
appointive; we want no masquerade. 

The Discipline put the appointment of presiding 
elders in the hands of the bishop, and let it remain 
there without modiiication or interference. 

To withdraw this power from the bishops would 
be to impose further and unwarranted limitations 
upon the Episcopacy, and to take from the bishops 
the one prerogative most essential to the performance 
of their duties in the successful administration of their 
oflBce. 

The election of presiding elders would be in effect 
to hold the bishop responsible for the ofBce, and yet 
not accord to him the right and privilege of appoint- 
ing the man upon whose judgment and advice he 
must rely in executing the oflBce of a bishop, and upon 
whom he must depend for a large measure of the suc- 
cess of his administration. This would be unjust. 

Inasmuch as the Church holds the bishop respon- 
sible, he must be free to act in the selection of the 
men for district supervision who, in his judgment, 
will do the work the best. 

The election of presiding elders would introdur-o 



124 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

into our Conferences candidating;, with electioneering 
processes, and finally all the political methods of se- 
curing preferment. 

We have enough candidating as things are now, 
and might well, and devoutly, wish for less as a 
Church. We are not altogether free from the use of 
the methods of modem politicians, even in Annual 
Conferences, while in the General Conference there 
are usually some who could teach the most astute 
political managers. 

"I understand my name has been suggested in 
connection with the pastorate of First Church, 

;^^ '^1 am being solicited to take the 

District ;^^ ^^My friends are urging me to consent to 

the use of my name for /^ are sayings we may 

sometimes hear during an Annual Conference session; 

while some turn to prophesying, saying, ^^- will 

be appointed presiding elder /^ or, seeing a greater 

vision, ^^ will be elected a bishop on the first 

ballot ;^^ and thus candidacies are launched and pro- 
moted, and the Presiding Eldership, the Bishopric, 
and other positions, are sought and sometimes ob- 
tained. But all this is without official sanction, and 
supposed to be under the ban of popular disapproval, 
and is, for these things are only sporadic in our 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 125 

Church; but what would be the eondition if we were 
to invite flagrantly disruptable methods by enacting 
a law requiring the election of presiding elders ? We 
should discountenance all such rather than encourage 
them. What little ''^self-seeking'' and ^^promotion'' 
there is among us should be frowned down^ and we 
should do nothing that would make them respectable, 
much less seemingly necessary. 

Again the election of presiding elders would 
produce evil speakings develop factions^ and inten- 
sify partisanship in our Conferences. Criticisms 
would be indulged in. False accusations would be 
whispered. Brethren would be wounded. Sweet fel- 
lowships would be interrupted. Companionships 
would be broken. Confidence would be destroyed. 
Alienations would ensue. Umbrages would deepen 
into revengefulness. The wand of peace would be 
exchanged for the sword. Men would be slaughtered 
as on a political field. The infiuence of Christian 
ministers would be paralj^zed. Our brotherhood would 
be torn asunder. Christ would be crucified in the 
house of His friends^ and unbroken desolation would 
set its seal and begin its awful reign. 

I am not disgruntled^ though I can not say that 
I have not been disappointed. I am neither soured 



126 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

nor souring. I am no pessimist. I have no sym- 
pathy with the wail of some that good men have no 
show for promotion^ that the Church is given over 
into the hands of ecclesiastical politicians^ and that 
only the ^Svire-puUer^^ can win out. 

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Head of the 
Churchy that honest and true men are in control, 
and that truth and righteousness^ justice and judg- 
ment, will record their vindications upon the enduring 
tablets of the Churches prosperity and fame. 

And yet I know that we have quite enough under 
present conditions to detract from the seriousness, 
dignitj^, and spirituality of our Conference occasions, 
and to divert us from the one great aim of our gather- 
ing. There is now too little union among us, too 
much suspicion and reproachful gossip, and too many 
parties ; and I protest with all earnestness against the 
introduction of the election of presiding elders as a 
thing that will provoke wrath more than good will, 
divisions rather than harmony, and bring on disaster 
rather than prosperity. 

The election of presiding elders would result in the 
frequent selection of incompetent men for the place. 

The most insinuating in the processes of personal 
aggrandizatioUj and skillful in wielding the power of 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 127 

political manipulation, but weak in other elements 
of effectiveness for the office, would succeed in bring- 
ing sufficient influence to bear upon the brethren 
to secure their support, while well-qualified men, and 
faithful but modest — and modesty has not ceased to 
be a grace even among the Methodist preachers — 
men, who would fill the office with fidelity to the 
Church, and great acceptableness, and good report, 
would be pushed aside and overlooked, and Methodism 
would be left to suffer the affliction and reproach of 
incompetency. We would have an impaired service, 
the office would suffer disparagement, and the officer 
would be tolerated as an intolerable nuisance; and 
even the brethren most active in "making his elec- 
tion sure^^ would reproach themselves inwardly while 
outwardly they would feign obeisance, and the Meth- 
odist Ministers^ Fraternity, now so united and great, 
would dissolve, and Ichabod would be written over 
the doors of our halls and temples, and Q-od would 
no more go forth with our armies, and we would 
^^tum back in the day of battle .^^ 

We would better reduce than increase the num- 
ber of elections in our Church. 

Finally, the election of presiding elders would 
weaken district administration. 



128 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

The presiding elder being a man^ tempted in all 
points as other men of like caliber and rank, would 
know who worked for his election^ would feel un- 
der special obligation to them, would naturally be 
disposed to do them a ^^good turn/^ and would, under 
ordinary circumstances, favor them above others, and 
they would form a coterie. 

Personal considerations would usurp the place 
of claims. Favoritism, and not merit, would control 
in recommendation and promotions. Kegencies would 
be created, and combinations would be entered into, 
and the administration would be so involved as to rob 
it of independency, and weaken and destroy it. 

Dark will be the day when the Methodist Episcopal 
Church adopts the plan of electing presiding elders. 
She will never do it. It would mark the beginning 
of a disintegration that would mean final dissolution. 

It is our conviction that none of the proposed 
changes offer any relief; that if we are depending 
upon any of these, we hope in vain and labor in vain. 

^^None of these things move me;^^ but I am not 
without hope. 

There is a way out of the present unrest, and I 
shall point it out in the next chapter. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

HOW TO MAKE THE PRESIDI Jf G ELDERSHIP 
MORE EFFECTIVE AND POPULAR. 

NOTWITHSTAKDIXG the inestimable value of the 
services of the Presiding Eldership in the Methodist 
Episcopal Churchy the abundant^ successful^ and far- 
reaching labors of the presiding elders^ and the con- 
sequent high esteem in which the office and its incum- 
bents have been justlj^ held in our Churchy and are 
to this day where the connectional spirit is strongs 
there are unmistakable indications that a change has 
come over some of our preachers and people relative 
to this important and^ to my mind^ indispensable arm 
of our Church power and expansion. 

This seems especially true in certain well-known 
sections where this office needs to be particularly and 
judiciously emphasized and magnified^ and the pre- 
siding elder should be more fully officially recognized 
and a more powerfully influential personality^ and 
episcopal prerogatives must be wisely accentuated and 
9 129 



130 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

firmly exercised in every sphere of their legitimate 
action, if present untoward tendencies are to be ef- 
fectually checked, and the Methodist Episcopal 
Church is to be held to her high purpose and destiny, 
and we are to be saved from a new and dangerous 
form of Congregationalism, an emasculate Methodism, 
neither episcopal nor congregational, and alike hu- 
miliating to the Episcopacy and the congregation. 

A Congregationalism which possesses only the 
power to suggest or nominate a man to be the min- 
ister, and labor among them in ^Vord and doctrine,^^ 
is a pitiable pretense of authority ; and an Episcopacy 
which carries with it in fact, though much more in 
name, only the power to write down the name of the 
nominee of a congregation, is a travesty on episcopal 
prerogative, a burlesque on ecclesiastical dignity. 
Better the one in full proportions, normal action, and 
effective, than the two in compromised relations, each 
stripped of its virtue; a combination of weaknesses, 
with authority divested of power ; fretting under lim- 
itations which forebode the day of irreconcilable dis- 
agreement, when the scepter shall drop from the pal- 
sied hand, the compact dissolve in dismemberment, 
and history record the failure of another experiment. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 131 

and God will kave to raise up another people who are 
not a people. 

And although the Presiding Eldership has borne 
its full share of the burden of responsibility and work^ 
and has proved itself to be one of the most useful 
offices in the Methodist Episcopal Churchy and pre- 
siding elders^ as a class^ have been wonderfully alert 
in hearing the Macedonian cry^ prompt in response 
thereto^ heroic in exploration of new fields, enduring 
uncomplainingly the severe hardships incident to the 
frontier, most effective in evangelistic effort, organ- 
izing capacity, administrative abilities, and intelli- 
gent leadership, and have thereby exerted an influence 
upon the extension, character, permanency, and stand- 
ing of the Methodist Episcopal Church, second to none 
who have been associated with them in the mighty 
transactions which have entered into the founding 
of a great Church, and the developing of a type of 
Church life which stands as a living protest against 
papal usurpations, Anglican pretensions, Calvinistic 
assumptions, Antinomian heresies, the fulminations 
of deadly fanaticism, and all that is heretical in doc- 
trine, cumbersome in polity, and vicious in practice, 
and wields the power of a spiritual hierarchy in main- 



133 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

taining high standards of faith, experience, and dis- 
cipline, and ^^growing unto a holj^ temple in the Lord/' 
the oflBce can be made more effective, and the pre- 
siding elder more efficient. 

But how can these things, so much desired, be ef- 
fected ? 

I have shown, in previous chapters, with reason- 
able conclusiveness, I think, that the remedy lies 
not in any of the various modifications of the office 
which have been proposed ; it lies elsewhere, as I shall 
try to make plain. 

The office itself needs no modification ; it is unique 
and perfect; it was so in the beginning. To add to 
or to take from will not avail anything except in the 
way of detraction. 

The improvement lies with the administration, 
and not in legislation, except in the repeal of Article 
two (2), Section three (3), of Paragraph one hun- 
dred and seventy-three (173), of the Discipline of 
1900; and this would not affect the office as such. 
Eelief must come through the administrators rather 
than through constitutional processes, were they 
deemed possible, or new statutory provisions curtail- 
ing or enlarging the powers of the office. The diffi- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 133 

culties complained of are in conditions of the serv- 
ice^ and not in the Constitution or laws of the Church. 
They are of a practical nature^ and the remedy must 
be practical. There are many ways in which the Pre- 
siding Eldership can be made more effective and pop- 
ular in our Churchy and the presiding elder can be- 
come more efficient and acceptable in service. Let ns 
consider some of these^ to ns the most important. 

1. Eescne the office itself from the disfavor into 
which it has fallen in recent years through miscon- 
ceptions as to its place^ power^ and usefulness in our 
economy. 

The office is not an extra cog in the wheels much 
less an extra wheel in Episcopal Methodism, and still 
less a ^^fifth wheel.^^ If the economy of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church is to be spoken of as a wheel — and 
we have no objection to the figure; it is both appropri- 
ate and striking — and all its parts^ severally, as wheels 
within a wheel, the Presiding Eldership is the sec- 
ond wheel from the view-point of authority, if it may 
not be the first in burden of service and practical 
results. 

Let the office be restored in the mind of the Church 
to its rightful position, and held there by all the force 



134 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

of the Constitution and laws of the Churchy and by 
the power of an acceptable and indispensable service 
to the Churches. 

This can be done. The proper instruction of our 
people and recognition will do this. The office must 
regain what it has lost through inattention^ misrep- 
resentation^ and corresponding depreciation, or the 
^•^end will come/^ and with it the greatest strain Epis- 
copal Methodism has ever been subjected to. 

2. Eemove the restriction upon the appointing 
power of a bishop which says, ^^He shall not allow 
a presiding elder to preside in the same district more 
than six consecutive years/^ and thus lift the limita- 
tion upon the tenure of service in this^ office, ^^in the 
same district.^^ 

Why should the presiding elders be made an ex- 
ception to the general rule in the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, and be cut short in their usefulness by 
time restrictions? They ask for no handicap, but 
protest against adverse discrimination, and have a 
right to equal advantages and means of success. Why 
should a presiding elder in an Annual Conference 
be the only officer in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
to be removed by the expiration of a specified num- 
ber of years? To me there seems no good reason 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 135 

why this un-Methodistic incumbrance should longer 
attach to this office^ and hinder the presiding elder 
in working ont the larger plans of his administration. 
It is an unwarranted imposition. It works a mani- 
fest injustice to the man in the ofl&ce^ and is positively 
deleterious in other respects. Can it be that it is a 
species of reflection originating in prejudice against 
the office? 

The removal of the ^'time limif ^ upon the office 
does not mean to make it a life-tenure office^ as in 
the case of bishops. I would not have it so. I believe 
in the life tenure in the office of a bishop^ but not in 
that of a presiding elder. But it does mean eligibility 
to be continued in the presidency of the same dis- 
trict for an indefinite time. It means that the wishes 
of the incumbent^ and his sense of duty and propri- 
ety^ and the judgment of the bishop authoritatively 
expressed in the appointment from year to year^ in 
consideration of all the circumstances^ general and 
particular^ which enter into the question of the ap- 
pointment of presiding elders^ shall fix the limit. It 
proposes to put the office on the same basis as that 
of the pastor^ and to give the same liberty to the 
bishops in appointing presiding elders that they have 
in appointing other preachers^ all other preachers, 



136 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

even presiding elders in missions and Mission Con- 
ferences. What is insisted upon is^ that the appoint- 
ment of presiding elders shall be made without ref- 
erence to time^ — solely on the ground of merit, adapt- 
ability and efficiency. 

This would enable a bishop to relieve a man of 
district supervision at the end of one year, or as soon 
as he demonstrated his lack of ability and adapation 
for the work, without particularly embarrassing him 
by removing him "before the time.^^ Herein lies one 
of the greatest embarrassments to the administration 
of the bishops. 

There is no question that preachers and Churches 
have submitted to district administrations both weak 
and weakening, and bishops have been caught in the 
snare of "term,^^ and prolonged the affliction under 
the persuasive plea of "serving out the term.^^ Is it 
not time to have done with this? 

Of course, under the law as it now stands, every 
man^s time is out at the end of the Conference year; 
but a custom has grown up among us which has all the 
force of an unwritten law, and is almost inexorable, 
under which the term idea is more powerful than the 
law itself, and prevails against the most urgent ap- 
peals for relief, and Churches are left to suifer and 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 137 

preachers to endure the agony till the ^'term is out/^ 
while the office itself is being covered with reproach. 
It is seldom a bishop declines to reappoint a man who 
insists on ^^serving out his term.^^ Eather than have 
one man feel humiliated^, a whole district must be 
afflicted, and Methodism suffer loss which she can 
never recover. 

There are noted instances to-day in which we are 
paying the penalty which attaches to incompetency, 
and where the most superior leadership could never 
restore Methodism to where she was in the beginning 
— in the front rank. We have lost our opportunity. 
Others have taken our crown, and we must continue 
at a ^^poor dying rate/^ or vamose^, and there are places 
w^here we would better, by far, do the latter, and the 
quicker the better. 

The removal of the time-limit would make the 
office more desirable, and some strong men who now 
^^respectfully decline the offer of a district,^^ cou^ld be 
secured for the position, and the Church could have 
the benefit of their experience and superior abilities 
in this larger but, under present conditions, less 
coveted sphere. It would enable a presiding elder to 
form associations that would be pleasant and helpful 
to himself and familv, and add to his influence as a 



138 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

representative of the Churcli. It would make it 
possible for him to become more familiar with the 
conditions of his fields and to accomplish more good. 
He could more permanently identify himself with the 
religiouS;, philanthropic^ and educational institutions 
of the district, and particularly with those in the 
community where he might reside ; his influence would 
be measured by his character, intelligence, and activi- 
ties, and would grow. 

The removal of the limit would tend to promote 
contentment, and thus add to the betterment of the 
service. 

Lift the ^^time-limif ^ from the Presiding Elder- 
ship, and loose presiding elders, and let them go. Put 
them on a level with their brethren, and let them serve 
on the self-respecting basis of merit and efficiency. 
This will strengthen the office, and likewise the pre- 
siding elder. 

3. So arrange the districts as to provide, on the 
basis of a reasonable per centum of the amount raised 
for the pastors, for the adequate support of the pre- 
siding elders. 

As a rule, I think presiding elders are not as well 
supported as the class of ministers among whom they 
would readily take rank were they simply pastors. 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 139 

Why should the salary of a presiding elder be less 
than that of a pastor who does not excel him in prepa- 
ration^ ability^ experience^ devotion^ and effectiveness 
in the pulpit^ nor in carefulness of oversight? It is 
no wonder that many of the stronger men now in the 
Presiding Eldership would prefer the pastorate. 

The office is virtually without perquisites. Do- 
nations and marriage fees go to the pastor properly. 
Occasionally a bishop officiates at the hymeneal altar, 
and once in a great while the presiding elder gets 
a ^^V.^^ 

They have to furnish their own ^Tiired house/^ 
and pay heavy traveling expenses^ out of the amount 
received upon their claim as estimated by the district 
stewards and apportioned to the charges. They must 
serve on boards^, commissions^ and committees^ and 
pay the expenses incident thereto^ without extra com- 
pensation^ and contribute liberally to various causes, 
local and general^ and at the end usually count them- 
selves fortunate if they have ^^made ends meet.^^ 

Presiding elders should be better supported. They 
should have what the Discipline contemplates — 
a ^^comfortable living/^ with the accent on the former. 

This can be brought about with greater certainty, 
and more satisfactorily to all concerned, by the proper 



140 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

arrangement of district boundaries^ rather than by 
increasing the per cent of the claim of the presiding 
elder upon any charge. 

Stronger districts^ smaller amounts apportioned to 
the charges for district supervision^ better compensa- 
tion for presiding elders^ and a better service, would 
give satisfaction to all. 

^The laborer is worthy of his hire/^ though he 
be a presiding elder. 

4. By the bishops carefully selecting and appoint- 
ing the strongest men available to "preside in the 
districts.^^ 

They have not been without anxiety in this matter, 
and are to be commended for the degree to which 
they have exercised themselves in an endeavor to 
secure the best men for the place. 

The office demands and the Church needs the 
ablest of our ministers for district supervision. The 
work is of a superior character, and requires superior 
workmen. The interests of a district are more im- 
portant than those of any one Church in the district, 
and if either must suffer it should be the latter. It 
is not necessary that either, much less both, should be 
imperiled to any appreciable degree. A strong 
Church can get along with an ordinary man far better 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 141 

than a district which embraces both weak and strong 
Churches. Put the stronger man on the district^ and 
he will soon have a stronger man in die strong Church, 
and stronger men and stronger Churches throughout 
his district. 

The Presiding Eldership is no place for incapa- 
bility. Preachers who have failed of a high degree 
of success in the pulpit and pastorate have no busi- 
ness in this office. And men now occupying the posi- 
tion, whose official acts are characterized by stupidity 
and perf unctoriness, ought to retire of their own ^^f ree 
will and accord f and if they will not, the law of un- 
acceptableness, on account of incapacity, ought to rule 
them out. 

The Presiding Eldership is not intended as a place 
of comparative retirement for inefficient men. It is 
not the Churches method of pensioning her worn- 
out ministers. It is the last place in all the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church for a brother who is superan- 
nuated in fact, though ^^eflective^^ by Conference ac- 
tion. Men who can not hold good Churches ought 
not to be appointed to the Presiding Eldership. The 
office is entitled to greater consideration. 

If through mental indolence, or averseness to 
labor, or slowness of physical motion, or indifference 



142 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

to the laws of ministerial etiquette^ or decay of vi- 
tality, or loss of interest in the work, or for any other 
reason, a man has fallen behind in the strenuous 
line of a Methodist minister, and can not longer fill 
^"^metropolitan stations,^^ or be gladly received by our 
better Churches, let him take a smaller charge, and 
therewith be content to serve out his day and gener- 
ation, and die in the fullness of Christian triumph. 
If unwilling to do this, if he "can not afford to step 
down,^^ let him become "temporarily disabled,^^ and 
take the "supernumerary relation,^^ or, in good grace, 
retire from active work, and pass up to that holy 
company of veterans walking in the golden gleam 
of the setting sun, already crowned with the diadem 
of well-earned earthly commendation, and waiting 
the day of their coronation in the Church triumphant. 
To appoint such men to a district is to afflict both 
them and the district. Age has nothing to do with 
it ; it is a question of life in action; not of years, but 
of energy. You can not measure the power of a man 
by the decades of his life. He may be great when 
young ; in the prime of life at sixty ; and at seventy- 
five the light of his eye may be undimmed, his agility 
unimpaired, his interest in men and affairs intensi- 



The Pbesidixg Eldership Structural. 143 

fied^ the grasp of his hand warmer^ and all the powers 
of a mighty personality quickened and concentrated 
in loftiest aims and widest usefulness. 

The presiding elder should be a man of cultivated 
and refined tastes^ of good address^ pleasing man- 
ners, of general intelligence; thoroughly conversant 
with the history, position, plans, and progress of his 
own Church; affable when affableness is in order; 
silent when silence is becoming ; a judge of men, keen 
in discernment, that he may protect and help the 
modest without discouragement, and check the im- 
modest without giving offense; skillful in adminis- 
tration ; a student engaged in a ^^if elong educational 
endeavor, with an ideal, a prayer, and an outlook,'-' 
with the Bible as his chief text-book; a man of Bib- 
lical learning as distinguished from theological sci- 
ence; an able expositor of the Word, a devout reader 
of good books, a master of the masters; acquainted 
with the principles of constitutional government, 
with a good knowledge of law, and of the Discipline of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and, withal, capable 
of exercising power without the show of authority ; a 
man of "good will,^^ and patient, easy to be entreated ; 
of firmness without obstinacy, of generosity and 
catholicity, ready and forceful, fearing God and work- 



144 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

ing righteousness^ — a genuine Christian gentleman 
everywhere. 

The Presiding Eldership is in search of such 
men. We have them in large numbers in our min- 
istry. The Church has need of them. The bishops 
ought to be able to lay hands on them. 

Fill the office with such men^ and Methodism will 
march forward through the new century with the 
conquering tread of an ^^army with banners.^^ 

Finally^ the Presiding Eldership can be made 
more effective and popular throughout the vast bor- 
ders of the Methodist Episcopal Church by the men 
who are selected by the bishops for the office^ putting 
themselves into it in the fullness of their strength, 
without reserve of body, mind, or heart. 

There should be no reservation. The office re- 
quires the best of any man. It is a position into 
which the greatest among us can find room, ^^and 
to spare.^^ It has opportunity pressing and vehe- 
mently calling for all the gifts of nature, grace, and 
the spirit, enriched by confession, intercession, giving 
of thanks, assiduous cultivation, and strenuous 
exercise. 

The place calls for a full-orbed man at his very 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 145 

best, and ^^always at if Let no man despise it, 
nor ^^keep back part of the price/^ 

He who has been called to this oflfice and ministry 
should throw himself, his personality, with all possible 
re-enforcement, into the work, and conscientiously, 
intelligently, and enthusiastically discharge its sacred 
obligations. He should enter it with a deep sense 
of the responsibility involved, with a high estimate of 
its claims and dignity; and, with a genius for inven- 
tion, masterfulness of plans, and with incisiveness of 
insight and attention to details, execute the office of a 
presiding elder in a manner that will justify the wis- 
dom of his appointment. He should carry into it that 
spirit, those social qualities, that commanding 
strength in the pulpit and on the platform, that 
will make his office a sine qua non in modem Meth- 
odism, and himself a popular preacher in the broad- 
est and truest sense of the expressive terms. For 
herein the highest gifts of men in grace, manner, and 
tongue, in business - skill and administrative power, 
have found, and may yet find, ample play and larg- 
est compensation. 

If the good Dr. Pullman, now transferred to the 
Upper Conference, characterized by Dr. James M. 
Buckley, as ^^the scholar, the thinker, the friend, the 
10 



146 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

brother, and tke minister/^ could say, in his dying 
hour, as he was putting off the armor of a presiding 
elder, "I love my present office. My heart has been 
given to my Churches, and they have just learned to 
trust me, when lo, the end has come. And yet to you 
[Dr. Buckley] I will say that I am not adapted to 
the Eldership. The burdens of it are too much for 
me, — ^the wear upon the heart-strings, the baffled 
desire to do the impossible, namely, to satisfy the de- 
sires of the preachers, — 0, but it is a hard office! 
How I wish some one with an angePs touch could say 
to our preachers. Brethren, deal patiently with your 
elders; do not scold them; they are carrying your 
disappointments as personal sorrows; why do you 
chastise them with words of bitterness and distrust ?^^ 
— what must others of us, who are not worthy to loose 
the latchets of his shoes, feel as we stand under the 
burdens of the Presiding Eldership? Strong men 
may well tremble in the view, but they must not hes- 
itate; they may save others, themselves they can not 
save. 

Who doubts that, with these things achieved — 
and they are achievable — the Presiding Eldership 
would be vastly more effective and increasingly pop- 
ular among preachers and Churches? 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 147 

We should then have less complaining, and there 
would be no occasion for propositions to ^^mend our 
rules/^ or modify, much less abolish the office of pre- 
siding elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

And I venture to remark that our Itinerant Gen- 
eral Superintendency would be likewise more eflEect- 
ive and popular. 



CHAPTER IX. 

GOVERNING PRINCIPLES IN THE ADMIN- 
ISTRATION OF THE PRESIDING EL- 
DERSHIP. 

Since the Presiding Eldership is so closely re- 
lated to the Bishopric in the appointing and super- 
visory powers vested in tha Episcopacy by the Con- 
stitution and laws of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy 
the consideration of the principles governing in the 
exercise of episcopal prerogatives is clearly within the 
scope and design of this work. 

Every well-organized Church that has acquired 
prestige in Christendom has its system of ministerial 
supply; a plan whereby Churches are supplied with 
pastors, and preachers are furnished with congrega- 
tions; a particular method by which the laborer and 
the vineyard are brought into co-operant relations. 
This is operated under the common law of demand 
and supply. 

In some Churches the plan is very simple, involv- 

148 



The Presidixg Eldership Structural. 149 

ing only the congregation and the preacher; the for- 
mer callings the latter accepting the call. 

In other Churches the plan is more complex, re- 
quiring the sanction of a third party in consiim- 
mating, as well as in dissolving, pastoral relations. 

The plan of the Methodist Episcopal Chnrch. is 
unique, simple, and effectual in operation, and works 
out the most permanent and generally satisfactory 
results in supplying the greatest number of Churches 
with pastors, and the largest number of ministers 
with congregations. With us the number of preach- 
ers without charges is reduced to the minimum, while, 
in fact, no Church among us is pastorless. 

The pastorate in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
is perpetual. . But few charges in all the connection 
are without a preacher in charge, and these are not 
without a pastor, for the presiding elder and the 
bishops are pastors. The personnel may change, but 
the pastorate is continuous in Episcopal Methodism. 
The system is truly philosophical and eminently 
practical. It has deep foundations. It is built on 
the fundamental principles of propagandism. The 
Church has the authority to say to this man, ^^Go,^^ 
and he goeth, and when he goeth he doeth the work 
she advises. She has not clothed her bishop with 



150 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

surplices^ and put into their hands a scepter which 
is more valuable for its material than for its power; 
but she has clothed them with functions, and in- 
vested them with authority supreme, and when they 
send men they are received with full confidence and 
ready response, and the work goes forward without 
the slightest interruption. 

This plan seems in harmony with the Scriptures. 
Moses was sent to the people of Israel. God sent 
forth His only begotten Son into the world. Christ 
sent His disciples to call the lost sheep back to the 
fold. Our Lord sent the apostles to preach the gos- 
pel to every creature. Paul and Barnabas, called 
by the Holy Ghost, and set apart, under His direction, 
for the work of the ministry, were sent, • 

Hence our plan has Scriptural sanction and is in 
accordance with apostolic usage. Accordingly we 
send men to the charges. But the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church does not usurp authority over men and 
Churches. The power she exercises is legitimate. 
It originates in conditions wholly voluntary. The 
Church derives her power from the consent of the 
governed. Ministers and Churches constitute a com- 
pact, based upon the surrender of certain individual 
and corporate natural rights under the law of the 



The Presidin-g Eldership Structural. 151 

larger service and greatest good to all concerned; a 
surrender amplj^ justified by the results. The bish- 
ops derive their power from the compact by constitu- 
tional provision and statutory enactment^ and exer- 
cise it under limitations prescribed therein. They do 
not ^%rd it over God^s heritage. ^^ They are them- 
selves servants obeying the mandates of the Church. 

Entrance into this compact is spontaneous on the 
part of ministers and Churches and their continuance 
therein is without compulsion. It is of their ^^own 
free will and accord they make application/^ and^ 
when admitted^ they reserve the right to ^^continue 
lively members of the same/^ or to withdraw on the 
conditions stipulated in the covenant and set forth in 
the Discipline. 

In entering the Methodist Episcopal Church the 
congregation surrenders certain natural rights^ or del- 
egates the powers which inhere in it as a religious 
body to the larger connectional organization, to be 
exercised by it in whatever manner it may direct 
through its ordained functionaries. 

The congregation relinquishes : 

1. The right to select, call, and settle its own 
minister. 



152 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

2. The right to determine what general doctrinal 
standards shall be maintained. 

3. The right to say what general rules and reg- 
ulations shall be adopted for its government and the 
government of its individual members. 

4. The right to say what amount of the minister's 
time shall be given to the work of the ministry and 
pastorate. 

5. The right to say when the minister's term of 
service shall end. 

Over against the transfer of these rights^ on the 
part of the congregation^ the Methodist Episcopal 
Churchy for its part;, guarantees certain things. 

It agrees with the congregation: 

1. To examine all candidates for the ministry as 
to their call to preachy their natural and acquired 
abilities for the work, and to exercise that power of 
godly admonition and discipline over their lives that 
will reasonably insure the Churches against being im- 
posed upon by unworthy men. 

2. To send to it a man to be their minister and 
pastor, and to serve them in all spiritual things. 

3. To require all pastors to apply themselves 
faithfully and with all diligence to their studies 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 153 

so as more fully to qualify them for the leadership 
of the people committed to their charge. 

4. That those whom she sends to them shall devote 
themselves wholly to the work of the ministry and 
pastorate^ and not entangle themselves in business or 
political affairs^ or other things that will hinder 
them in caring for souls and taking care of the work 
of God. 

5. To hold all the preachers to a strict account^ by 
effective supervision and annual examinations, for 
the manner in which they have done their work^ and 
to continue no man as ^^effective^^ who has rendered 
himself unacceptable by secularization or otherwise. 

These guarantees afford ample compensation to 
the Churches of our connection for all they surren- 
der in becoming parts of the great whole. 

A minister likewise relinquishes certain rights in 
entering the fraternity of the Methodist itinerancy. 

These are: 

1. The right to choose the particular field in 
which he is to labor as a minister. 

2. The right to say what kind;, and to determine 
what degree, of labor he is to perform in the pastorate?, 
and what portion of his time is to be given to the 
work. 



154 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

3. The right to fix, by contract, the amount of 
his financial compensation, and to collect, at law, the 
amount of the estimate for his support. 

4. The right to say what doctrines he will preach, 
and what Disciplinary regulations he will enforce. 

5. The right to determine when his pastorate shall 
cease. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church requires all this 
of her ministers, but ^^lays hands suddenly on no 
man^^ to compel him, and, only after due trial and 
strict examination, admits men to the ranks of her 
ministry. All Methodist Episcopal ministers have 
entered through this door; no man has climbed up 
any other way. 

But the Church does not require candidates for 
her ministry to blindfold themselves and walk down 
to altars, and in their darkness assume her vows. 
She would not thus stultify them. She insists on the 
reserve of a manly self-respect. She would not de- 
grade but ennoble personality and exalt individ- 
uality. She wants men, not things. Hence full time 
is given for examination of all that she requireth, 
and the grounds therefor, and the possibility of a just 
return. The Church guarantees to the man that 
which she holds as sufficient to justify him in the 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 155 

surrender he makes; that which seemeth to impov- 
erish^ but enricheth him. 

The assurances of the Church are worth some- 
thing. They mean much to Methodist ministers. 
They feel that they are fully justified in putting 
themselves at the disposal of the Churchy to be sent. 

It is on the foregoing principles that appoint- 
ments are made in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and Episcopal supervision is exercised over Churches 
and ministers; that bishops and presiding elders as- 
sume the charge of all the preachers and the Churches. 
There is a mighty significance in the word appomU 
ment. It is settled in the very foundations of our 
structure. It is the authoritative expression of all 
the power for which Episcopal Methodism stands in 
its historic relation, Churchly design, and ecclesias- 
tical authority. 

A better understanding of these principles of our 
government would have the effect to check some of 
the evil tendencies in our Church at this time, and 
silence the murmur against the exercise of episcopal 
prerogatives by the bishops and presiding elders. 

The system working through the bishops and pre- 
siding elders, as duly constituted executive officers, 
has not always worked without friction. Bishops and 



156 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

presiding elders are, like other men, human and fal- 
lible, and have erred, bnt more frequently through 
sympathy than through ignorance or arbitrariness. 
Once in a great while the ^^iron hand^^ may have been 
felt; but usually, even in such cases, the next ^^turn 
of the wheel" has made all things right, and that 
which seemed a loss was really great gain. 

But the friction has come about oftener through 
some Churches or ministers assuming to exercise rights 
which do not belong to them. They relinquish them, 
and now seek to use them unlawfully. Such unlawful 
use is usurpation, and therefore destructive of order 
and pernicious in the extreme. 

The bishops and presiding elders know more about 
the preachers and the Churches, and their adapta- 
tion one to the other, than either the Churches or 
the preachers know. They study them together as 
well as separately. The interests of both and of all 
together are considered with a conscientiousness, care- 
fulness and comprehensiveness truly remarkable. 
No officials of any Church or State know more about 
the men with whom they have to do than the bishops 
and the members of their ^^oflBcial family" know about 
the preachers whom they must appoint. And they 
know the Churches — their condition, special needs, 



The Presidixg Eldership Structural. 157 

financial strength^ liberality^ spirit of aggressiveness, 
and their possibilities under the right kind of lead- 
ership — and the man who will ^"^fiU the bill/^ and 
whether he can be had in justice to the claims of all 
others. 

The presiding elders have better opportunities for 
gaining such knowledge than the bishops; but the 
latter have a degree^ and accuracy of information 
concerning the ^^rank and file^^ of our ministry^ and 
especially so of those who are ^^somewhat in Confer- 
ence/^ that is astonishing^ and highly qualifies them 
for the discharge of the duties of their office. 

They critically examine and compare the general 
statistics. 

They read the accounts of revivals^ the building 
of parsonages^ and the dedication of churches^, reports 
of conventions and ministerial associations. They 
visit the Annual Conferences^ call the name of every 
preacher in the connection^ hear the representations 
of presiding elders in the ^^cabinet/^ and listen to 
the reports of the brethren in open Conference ses- 
sion^ all the while studying the men. They are 
brought into association with them frequently^, and in 
various forms of activity^ and under a variety of cir- 
cumstances where they are exposed^ consciously or un- 



158 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

consciously^ to the closest scrutiny. They get knowl- 
edge from all sources from within and without; and 
last^ but not leasts from the conferences of the bish- 
ops^ where they meet on the high level of co-ordi- 
tion^ open candor has right of way^ things seen 
from the housetops of episcopal visitations are told 
within the walls of sacred precincts, and all things 
are made manifest. 

The Methodist preacher who is not pretty well 
known by the bishops has not yet ascended very high 
on the horizon of usefulness or fame; his star has 
not yet appeared to the wise men. 

Occasionally an aspiring brother feels that he has 
failed of a coveted appointment because the bishop 
did not know him, or he lacked in appreciative repre- 
sentation by the presiding elder. This may be so in 
rare cases; but in most instances he failed because 
the bishop did know him, and the presiding elder 
did properly represent him. 

Sometimes Churches do not get the man they 
wanted; but, as a rule, this is because some other 
Church has prior claims, or he is taken for district 
work, or for the reason that the bishop and the pre- 
siding elder know he is not the man they need, and 
that they would not want him if they knew him 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 159 

as he is known by those who ^Vatch for their souls 
as those who must give account/^ 

This brings ns to the consideration of another 
principle which controls in the Presiding Eldership, 
— the holding of the interests of the preachers and 
Churches separately, and yet conjointly. 

Some contend that the first great care of the pre- 
siding elder should be the preacher, and after that 
the Church. Others claim that the Church should 
be first in the thought of the presiding elder, and 
after the Church, the preacher. 

These are extreme views, and are superficial. They 
involve an absurdity, and lead to onesided supervision. 
They contravene one of the unvarying laws of pros- 
perity. To follow either as a governing principle is 
to produce dissatisfaction, weakness of action, and 
comparative failure. 

The preacher and the Church are separate factors 
in the problem, but the problem is one; their inter- 
ests are identical. There is no real conflict. If the 
interests of the one are conserved, the interests of 
the other are likewise. If the preacher be promoted, 
the Church will be graded up. If the Church be 
graded up, the preacher will be promoted. They are 
interlocked. Both are held steadily in view. No 



160 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Church should be sacrificed to accommodate a 
preacher; no preacher should be sacrificed to accom- 
modate a Church. The best results can not be ac- 
complished by any such pernicious method. They 
^^twain are one, and those whom God hath joined to- 
gether let no man put asunder/^ They go up or they 
go down together. They must ^Taang together, or 
they will hang separately.^^ 

The aim of the presiding elder should be to ad- 
vance the preachers to the highest degree of prepa- 
ration, devotion, courage, and usefulness, and to ad- 
vance them as rapidly as possible on this basis, with a 
due consideration for the just claims of all others, 
and to promote the Churches to the greatest liberal- 
ity, enthusiastic endeavor, breadth of plan, loyal co- 
operation, and the greatest efficiency, and to supply 
them up to the full measure of their need, and thus 
make strong, popular, and successful preachers, and 
build great and growing Churches. 

Eecently a prominent presiding elder in one of 
the great Conferences of our Church, on retiring 
from the district at the close of a prosperous term, 
declared that he was ^Tiungry for the pastorate.^' 
In this he is not alone. Many of his most success- 
ful colleagues in the office of presiding elder share 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 161 

with him the same desire. He will doubtless be a 
better pastor for having been a successful presiding 
elder ; for in his official relations he saw wherein some 
preachers fail and Churches come shorty and his pas- 
torate will be mightily re-enforced by his experience 
and observations in the office. 

But what of the district from which he retired, 
with all its Churches and preachers ? His place may 
have been filled by the appointment of a strong man, 
taken from the pastorate in the vigor of a noble 
manhood, well equipped for the work whereunto the 
Church hath called him, and who will carry into dis- 
trict supervision the wealth of experience, ripening 
scholarship, deepening sympathy, and a zealousness 
•that will inspire the preachers and Churches, and 
lead them ^^forward against the foe,^^ and ^^on to 
victory.^^ 

If so, well; for on such appointment depends 
the wise application of the principles governing in 
the Presiding Eldership, and on their right appli- 
cation hinges the success and destiny of Methodism. 

The most important work of the bishops is the 
appointment of presiding elders, and with the Pre- 
siding Eldership rests the future of Episcopal 
Methodism. 
11 



162 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

With great men for bishops, and scarcely less for 
the Presiding Eldership, and the exemplification of 
the governing principles of our system of supervision, 
we shall have a ministry that can and will command 
and lead, and our Churches will put on garments 
of strength and beauty, and go forth conquering 
and to conquer. 

An army of lions with a stag for a leader may ac- 
complish something; an army of stags with a lion 
for a leader will accomplish more; and an army of 
lions with lions for leaders is irresistible. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church needs the ^^army 
of lions with lions for leaders ;^^ and our homes of 
prayer, purity, and culture, our Churches with al- 
tars aflame with revival fire, our Epworth Leagues 
crowded with young people aglow with intelligence, 
enthusiasm, and courage, with the Sunday-school 
hosts as re-enforcements, and our institutions of 
learning as centers of training in the philosophy and 
elements of modem leadership, can supply this need 
of our Methodism, and will if given a chance. 

The Church of Jesus Christ is in the midst of the 
mightiest conflict in history. The forces are in bat- 
tle array. The crisis is on. The struggle will be de- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 163 

cisive. The world-side is calling for leaders. The 
cry of the Church is for leadership. 

The Methodist Episcopal Churchy is^ of right, in 
the forefront. She is necessarily exposed to the most 
deadly assaults. Against her all the anti-Christian 
forces of these stirring times are concentrated and 
hurled. She must stand in the ^^thickest of the fi-ght/^ 
bear the brunt of the onset, drive back the enemy, 
put to flight the armies of the aliens, and plant the 
standard of the Cross with this emblazonment, ''In 
hoc signo vincesf'' 

Upon her, therefore, devolves the responsibility of 
leadership in the modern Protestant Christian world. 
She is sufficient for this, with Christ as her Captain- 
General. 

But let the chief men take heed unto themselves, 
unto the doctrine, and likewise unto the administra- 
tion. Let them see that candidates for our ministry 
^^first be proved.^^ ^^Let the deacons be grave, not 
double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy 
of filthy lucre ; holding the mystery of the faith in a 
pure conscience.^^ "Let the elders take heed unto 
themselves and to all the flock over which the Holy 
Ghost hath made them overseers, to feed the Church 



164 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

of God/^ ^^exercising the oversight not of constraint, 
but willingly, according unto God ; nor yet for filthy 
lucre, but of a ready mind ; neither as lording it over 
the charge allotted^^ to them, but as ensamples to 
the flock/^ And let them that ^^seek the office of a. 
bishop^^ possess all the requisites to a ^^good work'^ 
in the highest and most important position in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

With our doctrines, polity, plans, adaptation, re- 
sources, and prestige, give us leaders, and we will 
conquer the world, and bring its treasures as trophies, 
and lay them at the feet of Him who subdueth all 
things under us, and crown Him King of kings and 
Lord of lords. 



APPENDIX. 

One of the most delicate;, diflScnlt^ and important 
duties of a presiding elder is in connection with the 
transfer of preachers from another to his own Con- 
ference^ and especially so in the interim of Confer- 
ence sessions. 

It frequently happens that the applicant is a 
stranger to the presiding elder. The bishop^, or bish- 
ops, having supervision know more or less about him. 
The General Minutes (a requisite to a presiding el- 
der) indicate, in some degree, his standing in- his 
Conference. He writes about himself and family, 
and truthfully, and sometimes sends his photograph. 
His oflBcial brethren give him gratifying testimonials, 
and his presiding elder furnishes him with a ^To 
whom it may concern,^^ commending him for ^^gifts, 
grace, and usefulness.^^ 

But the information from these sources is often 
inadequate, and the presiding elder to whom the appli- 
cation has been made seeks ^^more light.^^ He is in 
great need of a man, but he wants the ^^right man.^^ 
He can not be too careful. He ought to know what 

165 



166 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

he is doings and must if he take care of his Churches, 
and serve his Conference. It is better to leave his 
Church without a preacher in charge for half a year 
than to blunder through haste^, and get the wrong 
man. It is easier to take care of a Church for awhile 
than to get ^^rid^^ of a man who is insufficient for the 
work. 

The author of the foregoing chapters has had 
some little experience and some serious vexations in 
this matter, having served the Church mostly on the 
frontier, where preachers are ^^scarce/' and many 
transfers must be secured in order to provide for the 
Churches, and he has found the following letter of 
inquiry of service in eliciting the information he 
needed as a basis of his action in asking for the 
transfer of a man : 

Eugene, Oregon, , 

Eev. , 

Presiding Elder, 



Dear Brother : — 

The Eev. has applied for a transfer to our 

Conference with a view to taking charge of one of 



The Peesiding Eldership Structural. 167 

the Churches in my district, and I write for further 
information concerning him and his family. 

You will oblige me greatly, and serve the Churchy 
if you kindly answer the following questions: 

How long have you known him? 

What is his record for success in building up the 
material and spiritual interests of the Church, and 
in raising funds for general and local Church work? 

Is he a ^^shorf ^ or ^^long^^ term pastor ? 

Does he ^^get in'-' and '^strike his best licks" first, 
and become very popular for a season, and then wane? 

What classes of people is he popular with? 

Does he look after the poor and shun the rich ? 

Does he neglect the poor and run after the rich? 

Does he have ^^pets" in his Official Board or in 
his congregation? 

Does he do the work of a pastor cheerfully and 
thoroughly ? 

Has he any ^^obbies ?" If so, what are they ? 

Is he sound in doctrine, after our manner of 
teaching ? 

What is his position on the subject of holiness ? 

What is his attitude toward the Presiding Elder- 
ship and the Bishopric ? 

Is he evangelistic in spirit and method? 



168 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Does he have revivals on his charge? 

If so^ what are the chief characteristics of them? 

Does he stay on his charge^ and ^^stick'^ to his 
work? 

Is he easily discouraged? 

Does he talk about his brethren and criticise 
them ? 

Does he commend his brethren for well-doing? 

Is he overassertive, or overmodest^ or hypersen- 
sitive ? 

How does he preach? 

What is the character of his sermons? 

Does he read his sermons^ or preach extempora- 
neously ? 

What is the length of his sermons usually ? 

Does he relish^ or is he given to tellings stories 
of an ^^off color ?^^ 

Is he clean in person and neat in his apparel ? 

Is he pleasing in his manners? 

Is he tall and slender or short and stout? 

Has he any physical defect? If so, what is it? 

Is he hypochondriacal? 

Is he a graduate of any of our colleges or the- 
ological seminaries? 

If so, what college or seminary? 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 169 

Is he a student? 

Does he buy new books and study them ? 

What class of books does he seem to relish most? 

Is he genial as he moves among the people? 

Is he a discreet man in the management of his 
own affairs ? 

Is he prudent among women ? 

Has there ever been anything against his chai- 
acter? 

Is there any unfavorable rumor afloat concerning 
him now ? 

Does he take good care of the parsonage property? 

Is his wife a woman of sound discretion? 

Is she a neat housekeeper^ and does she take care 
of her children? 

Have they reasonable control over their children? 

Does he care for the children of the Church? 

Does he hold the young people? 

Does he maintain the class-meetings and prayer- 
meetings regularly ;, and does he attend them? 

Does he preach on the subject of Missions^ Church 
Extension, Education, etc., etc., as the Discipline 
directs ? 

Does he get his full claim, as a rule? 



170 The Presiding Eldership Structural. 

Does he bring up the apportionments for the 
benevolent causes? 

You may consider your answers to the above ques- 
tions confidential^ if you wish. 

Thanking you, in advance, for official courtesies, 
and the aid you may render me in my work, I am, 

Yours faithfully. 



Presiding Elder. 

The necessity of asking such questions, and the 
duty of a presiding elder to impart the information 
solicited, grow out of the power of the bishops sev- 
erally to appoint any preacher in ^^regular stand- 
ings^ and on the ^^effective list^^ to any vacant charge 
in the connection, limited only by official courtesy, 
and absolutely forbidding conditions, the right of any 
such preacher to be appointed to any vacant Church 
in the denomination, regardless of Annual Confer- 
ence boundaries, the obligation of the presiding elder 
to his Church and to his Conference, and the respon- 
sibility of the presiding elder of the preacher to his 
colleague and to the whole Church. 

It is only in this way that we can hold men to a 
strict account where they are best known, and pre- 



The Presiding Eldership Structural. 171 

vent Churches, bishops, and Conferences from being 
imposed upon by the transfer of wornout, incom- 
petent, or unworthy men. 

The greatest care should be taken by presiding 
elders in the matter of transfers, that the rights and 
interests of preachers be not abused, the good of the 
Churches be promoted, and the strength of the Con- 
ference be conserved. 



MAR 2 6 1904 



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